Transcript of REPLAY - Pronunciation: Contracting AM – I am = I’m

G'day guys, and welcome to Aussie English. My objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken Down Under. So whether you want to speak like a fair dinkum Aussie or you just want to understand what the flippin' hell we're on about when we're having a yarn, you've come to the right place. So sit back, grab a cuppa and enjoy Aussie English.

G'day, guys. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today I'm going to teach you how to contract the word "am". So the present tense of the verb to be that pairs with the pronoun I. So first person singular.

So we're going to learn how to contract "am" onto "I". So "I am" becomes "I'm". So let's quickly just start this guys with a quick listen and repeat exercise where I'll say "I am" and I want you to turn "I am" into "I'm". Or just listen along and repeat after me.

I am. I am. I'm. I am. I'm. I am. I'm. I am. I'm. I am. I'm. I am. I am. I'm. I am. And now we'll just go through a substitution exercise where I'll say a series of sentences in pairs, and the first sentence is going to not include the contraction of "am" onto the pronoun "I". So it will be "I am" instead of "I'm".

And I want you to listen to the first sentence and try and contract "I am" into "I'm" and repeat that sentence. If this is a little too advanced for you at this stage, just treat the substitution exercise like a listen and repeat exercise and keep practising until you can do it as a substitution exercise. So let's go guys.

I am happy. I'm happy.

I am feeling cold. I'm feeling cold.

I am aware that I am late. I'm aware that I'm late.

I am looking for a map of the city. I'm looking for a map of the city.

Do you know where I am hiding? Do you know where I'm hiding?

I am young, but I am willing to learn. I'm young, but I'm willing to learn.

I am proud to say that I am your son. I'm proud to say that I'm your son.

I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

I am glad that I am living in Melbourne. I'm glad that I'm living in Melbourne.

I am Pete and I am the one teaching you English. I'm Pete, and I'm the one teaching you English.

So that's it for this short episode, guys. I hope that helps you improve your pronunciation of the words "I am" and how they're pronounced when they're contracted together into the form "I'm". Listen and repeat this exercise until it becomes natural, guys. And I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. See ya!

You've been listening to the Aussie English Podcast. If you like what you hear, please come and join our Facebook community and like and share this episode in order to help the podcast grow. If you'd like to support the Aussie English Podcast, please consider donating a few dollars on my Patreon page, which will be linked in the episode transcript. The more you guys donate, the more time and effort I can spend improving the podcast. Until next time guys. All the best.

Transcript of REPLAY - Pronunciation: Contracting IS – He is, She is, It is = He’s, She’s, It’s

G'day guys, and welcome to Aussie English. My objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken Down Under. So whether you want to speak like a fair dinkum Aussie or you just want to understand what the flippin' hell we're on about when we're having a yarn, you've come to the right place. So sit back, grab a cuppa and enjoy Aussie English.

G'day guys! Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today we're going to concentrate on contracting the word 'is' onto the pronouns 'he', 'she', and 'it'.

So 'is' is the second person singular form of the verb 'to be' in the present tense. So we'll do a little listen and repeat exercise here guys, where I'll say 'he is' and 'he's' five times, then 'she is' and 'she's' five times. And then 'it is' and 'it's' five times.

You can treat this as a simple listen and repeat exercise where you try and mimic and say everything exactly how I say it. And if you want to take it to the next level, you can anticipate the contraction and contract the form of 'he is' to 'he's', 'she is' to 'she's', and 'it is' to 'it's' before I do it. So after the first sentence each time. Anyway, let's get started.

He is. He's. He is. He's. He is. He's. He is. He's. He is. He's. She is. She's. She is. She's. She is. She's. She is. She's. She is. She's. It is. It's. It is. It's. It is. It's. It is. It's. It is. It's.

So now let's do a substitution exercise, guys, where as usual, I'll say a series of different sentences. In this case using 'he is', 'she is' and 'it is'. And I want you guys to contract each of these sentences into 'he's', 'she's', and 'it's' where you hear those words used in the sentences.

If this is a little too advanced at this stage, just treat it like a listen and repeat exercise guys. And the more you do it, the better you'll become and it will become more natural. So let's go!

He is hungry. He's hungry. She is unwell. She's unwell. It is hot today. It's hot today. It is time to head home. It's time to head home. She is an amazing surfer. She's an amazing surfer. He is always late to work. He's always late to work. She is asking if it is for sale. She's asking if it's for sale. She is obsessed with horses. She's obsessed with horses. It is what I've always wanted. It's what I've always wanted. He is hoping that she is single. He's hoping that she's single. He is acting like he is in charge. He's acting like he's in charge. He is my favourite footy player. He's my favourite footy player. It is exactly what he is wanting to buy. It's exactly what he's wanting to buy.

So that's it for this episode, guys. Keep practising these contractions. Listen to this episode until you guys get it. Naturally, until you can say these contractions without thinking about it and your English is only going to improve. See you in the next episode, guys!

You've been listening to the Aussie English Podcast. If you like what you hear, please come and join our Facebook community and like and share this episode in order to help the podcast grow. If you'd like to support the Aussie English Podcast, please consider donating a few dollars on my Patreon page, which will be linked in the episode transcript. The more you guys donate, the more time and effort I can spend improving the podcast. Until next time, guys. All the best!

Transcript of REPLAY - Embarrassing English Errors: Wonder & Wander

G'day guys, and welcome to Aussie English. My objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken Down Under. So whether you want to speak like a fair dinkum Aussie or you just want to understand what the flippin' hell we're on about when we're having a yarn, you've come to the right place. So sit back, grab a cuppa and enjoy Aussie English.

G'day guys. Welcome to this episode of Embarrassing English Errors. Today I want to do the words 'wander' and 'wonder'. 'Wander' and 'wonder'. So both of these words can actually be a verb. 'To wonder' or 'to wander' and a noun 'a wander', 'a wonder'.

With regards to the word 'wonder' as a verb, it means to desire, to know something, to feel curious, so 'to wonder'. "I wonder what job I'll have in the future." "I wonder what I'll do tomorrow when my friend comes over."

As a noun, 'a wonder' is a feeling of amazement and admiration caused by something beautiful, remarkable, or unfamiliar, 'a wonder'. "Have you explored the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef?" So that's an example of that one.

'Wander' as a verb, 'to wander' means to walk or to move in a leisurely way. So it's kind of like to walk slowly with no real speed to it. It's just to take your time and enjoy the walk. "I'm just wandering around town at the moment." "I'm just going for a wander in the park."

And the noun 'a wander' is again a walk with no specific destination. So a leisurely walk with no real specific destination. So you could say, "I'm going for a wander in the park." "I'm going for a wander in the forest." "Do you want to go for a wander with me?"

So what are some words in English that sound like 'wonder'? Blunder. Thunder. Plunder. Sunder. And what are some words in English that sound like 'wander'? Squander? Yonder. Ponder. Responder. Transponder.

And I guess too, something to discuss here quickly before we move on to the next exercises, the word 'wonder' is spelt with an O. W O N D E R 'wonder'. So one way of thinking about the spelling of this when you write it, if you're trying to say that "I wonder why" is to think of the word that is the past tense of the verb 'to win', 'I won'. It sounds exactly the same. Wonder won wonder.

Wander, on the other hand, is a difficult one because there aren't too many words in English I think that are pronounced like an /un/ sound, but spelt with an A. But one cheat or one little trick could be if you're thinking of going for 'a wander' like a walk, a wander, to think of the pronunciation or the spelling, think of Harry Potter and his 'wand'. Because that's said in exactly the same way. He has a wand. "He uses his 'wand' while he goes for a 'wander'". So that's one way of thinking about it.

So let's start by practising the two different vowel sounds guys back to back ten times. An. On. An. On. An. On. An. On. An. On. An. On. An. On. An. On. An. On.

So let's go through and practice some different consonants in front of these two different vowel sounds, guys. One. Won. Ton. Ton. Sun. Son. Lon. Lon. Can. Con. Fun. Fawn. Stun. Stone. Plan. Blown. Drun. Drawn. Yan. Yawn. Van. Von. Zahn. Zohn. Pun. Pawn. Ban. Bon. Nun. Non. Mun. Mon. Run. Ron.

And let's finish up with some pronunciation practice of these words in their entirety ten times. Back to back. Wonder. Wander. Wonder. Wander. Wonder. Wander. Wonder. Wander. Wonder. Wander. Wonder. Wander. Wonder. Wander. Wonder. Wander. Wonder. Wander. Wonder. Wander.

So that's it for today, guys. If you have any other suggestions with regards to sounds or words that you have difficulty pronouncing in English, feel free to send me a message on Facebook or comment below on this link when I post it up and let me know what you'd like help with. Until next time guys! All the best!

You've been listening to the Aussie English Podcast. If you like what you hear, please come and join our Facebook community and like and share this episode in order to help the podcast grow. If you'd like to support the Aussie English Podcast, please consider donating a few dollars on my Patreon page, which will be linked in the episode transcript. The more you guys donate, the more time and effort I can spend improving the podcast. Until next time guys. All the best.

Transcript of REPLAY - Pronunciation: Could Have = Could've - Could'ah

G'day, guys, and welcome to Aussie English. My objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken Down Under. So whether you want to speak like a fair dinkum Aussie or you just want to understand what the flippin' hell we're on about when we're having a yarn, you've come to the right place. So sit back, grab a cuppa and enjoy Aussie English.

Hey guys! Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today is another pronunciation episode and this pronunciation episode is going to focus on contracting "could have". So the construction "could have" gets contracted into "could've" and "could'ah".

So I'll just run you guys through the different ways you can use "could have". I won't focus too much on them in this episode, but I'll give you an idea of how it can be used. And I've made sure that I cover these different kinds of uses of could have in the exercises.

So number one, it's used to talk about something someone was able to do in the past but didn't do. For example, "I could have gone to the party, but I didn't feel like it."

Number two, there's often a sense of criticism when it's said. So if you've, if you didn't do something that you could have done or should have done, then someone may use it in the form. For example, "You could have phoned me to let me know that you'd be late."

Number three, to speculate about something that has happened. For example, "She could have taken the earlier bus." So you don't know if she took it, but she would have been able to. She could have done it. It's possible that that's what she did in the past.

So number four, to speculate about something that hasn't happened. For example, "You could have broken your neck if you'd fallen out of the tree." So this would be like if your kid was climbing in a tree, but he got down safely. The mum could be angry and say, "Look, you could have broken your neck if you'd fallen out of the tree. It was dangerous."

And number five, you can also use it to talk about possible present situations that haven't yet happened. For example, "I could have been earning a lot of money as an accountant, but I found it to be a boring job." So it's something that would have been possible if you decided to do it in the present.

Anyway, that's enough of that. Let's go through the listen and repeat exercise, guys, where I contract could have with the different pronouns. So listen and repeat after me, I could have. I could've. I could'ah. You could have. You could've. You could'ah. He could have. He could've. He could'ah. She could have. She could've. She could'ah. We could have. We could've. We could'ah. They could have. They could've. They could'ah. It could have. It could've. It could'ah. Things could have. Things could've. Things could'ah.

So practice and repeat that a few times until you get that basic idea and the basic muscle memory in your mouth of how to make these contractions.

And now I'll go through a substitution exercise where I'll say a series of sentences twice, and in the first example sentence I'll say "could have". And I want you to contract it into the second sentence into "could've". So let's go.

He could have told her. He could've told her.

She could have taken the earlier train. She could've taken the earlier train.

She could have been earning a lot as a doctor. She could've been earning a lot as a doctor.

They could have overheard everything we said. They could've overheard everything we said.

He could have hurt someone driving that recklessly. He could've hurt someone driving that recklessly.

They could have won the game if they had played smarter. They could've won the game if they had played smarter.

I could have done that just like him if I had have wanted to. I could've done that just like him if I had have wanted to.

You could have called me to let me know you would be late. You could've called me to let me know you'd be late.

Your friends would have come to the party if they could have. Your friends would have come to the party if they could've.

We could have asked him when he was here, but we forgot to. We could've asked him when he was here, but we forgot to.

He could have been the president if it weren't for the scandal. He could've been the president if it weren't for the scandal.

You could have broken your neck jumping off the roof like that. You could've broken your neck jumping off the roof like that.

She could have bought tickets to the show, but she didn't feel like it. She could've bought tickets to the show, but she didn't feel like it.

They could have had breakfast this morning, but they weren't hungry. They could've had breakfast this morning, but they weren't hungry.

They could have helped me make dinner instead of just sitting on the couch. They could've helped me make dinner instead of sitting on the couch.

So listen and do these substitution exercises a few times, guys. And I know a lot of these sentences are actually quite long. And so it's going to be quite difficult to remember the entire sentence and then say it with the contracted form perfectly, without reading off the manuscript or reading off the transcript. So I definitely recommend doing this with the transcript if you need to, because remembering these sentences isn't the aim here. It's practising these contractions.

So that said, let's dive into the next exercise guys where instead of "could have" I'm going to get you to contract "could've" into "could'ah". So, "could've" into "could'ah". And I'll use the same example sentences again.

He could have told her. He could'ah told her.

She could have taken the earlier train. She could'ah taken the earlier train.

She could have been earning a lot as a doctor. She could'ah been earning a lot as a doctor.

They could have overheard everything we said. They could'ah overheard everything we said.

I could have done well on my exam if I had studied. I could'ah done well on my exam if I had studied.

He could have hurt someone driving that recklessly. He could'ah hurt someone driving that recklessly.

They could have won the game if they had played smarter. They could'ah won the game if they had played smarter.

I could have done that just like him if I had have wanted to. I could'ah done that just like him if I'd have wanted to.

You could have called me to let me know you'd be late. You could'ah called me to let me know you'd be late.

Your friends would have come to the party if they could have. Your friends would have come to the party if they could'ah.

We could have asked him when he was here, but we forgot. We could'ah asked him when he was here, but we forgot.

He could have been the president if it weren't for the scandal. He could'ah been the president if it weren't for the scandal.

You could have broken your neck jumping off the roof like that. You could'ah broken your neck jumping off the roof like that.

She could have bought tickets to the show, but she didn't feel like it. She could'ah bought tickets to the show, but she didn't feel like it.

They could have had breakfast this morning, but they weren't hungry. They could'ah had breakfast this morning, but they weren't hungry.

They could have helped me make dinner instead of just sitting on the couch. They could'ah helped me make dinner instead of just sitting on the couch.

So I might mention here to guys that unlike 'would', being able to be contracted onto pronouns, 'could' is never contracted onto pronouns. So that's just something to remember. And it's the same for "should've".

So yeah, that's really all there is to it guys. Keep practising this exercise. Keep practising the contractions. Don't try and remember everything perfectly. Just keep going over it until it becomes something that you do naturally. It will take time. It's not going to happen overnight, but you will only get better at it the more you practice these things. So keep at it. I've got faith in you guys. You're going to be awesome. Keep learning English, keep practising your contractions and I'll chat to you soon. All the best guys.

You've been listening to the Aussie English Podcast. If you like what you hear, please come and join our Facebook community and like and share this episode in order to help the podcast grow. If you'd like to support the Aussie English Podcast, please consider donating a few dollars on my Patreon page, which will be linked in the episode transcript. The more you guys donate, the more time and effort I can spend improving the podcast. Until next time guys. All the best.

Transcript of REPLAY - Embarrassing English Errors: Salary & Celery

G'day, guys! Welcome to this episode of Embarrassing English Errors. I had a question from one of the listeners recently, and I'm sorry, I can't remember the name of the person, but hopefully this episode reaches you and hopefully it helps. And the question was regarding the difference in pronunciation between the words 'salary' and 'celery'. 'Salary' and 'celery'.

So I'll go through the definitions of these words first. 'Salary.' The word 'salary' is a noun, and it's a form of periodic payment that you would get or you would receive from your employer if you were an employee. So, it's your pay. The pay you get from your boss. "Your weekly salary could be $500." You could have a fortnightly salary. Therefore, of $1,000, your monthly salary would be four times your weekly salary, which would be obviously $2,000 in this case. And your yearly salary is obviously 52 times your weekly salary. So, that's 'salary'. 'Salary'. It's your payment, a periodic payment.

'Celery', on the other hand, 'celery' is another noun, but this is a type of plant. So it's a type of vegetable that's eaten. It's long and fibrous. And in Australia, celery tends to be eaten quite often at parties as a healthy treat with peanut butter on it. So that's 'celery'. It's a type of vegetable.

So I'll go through the first syllable of each of these words, guys.

/Sal/ I couldn't find too many words that sounded like /sal/, that S A L from the first syllable of the word salary, the money that you get paid.

Sal. There's two words in American English that I could think of off the top of my head, pal, which is a good friend, a pal, a mate, pal, and the word gal, which is girl in American English. She's my gal. She's my girl. So, pal. Gal. And the word shall. Shall. And this is sort of interchangeable with the word will, as in I shall do that, I will do that. So, pal. Gal. Shall. Words in English that sound like the first syllable of celery. That sell. Celery. Sell. Bell. Gel. Dwell. Shell. Swell. Well. Yell. Spell. Smell. Tell. The second syllable of salary. Your periodic payment every. Barry. Dairy. Cherry. Mary. Prairie. Sherry. Scary. Very. And the second syllable of celery. The vegetable. Celery. Blurry. Furry. Bury. Burly. Early. Curly. Pearly. Surly. Girly. Shirley. So that said, though, when spoken quickly, celery and celery are going to sound pretty much exactly the same, whether it's the first syllable or the second syllable. And people tend to understand what you're talking about based on context. If you're talking about what you're going to eat, people aren't going to be confused thinking you're talking about what your employer is paying you. And if you're talking about your wage or your salary, the payment you get from your employer, people aren't going to get confused thinking you're talking about the vegetable celery.

So let's just go through and do some back to back exercises ten times here guys, where I will try and pronounce the words differently so that you can hear that slight vowel change, slight pronunciation change between these syllables. Sell sell sell. Sell. Sal. Sell. Sal. Sell. Sell. Sell. Sal. Sell. Sal. Sell. Sal. Sell. Sal. Sell. Sal. Sell. Arie. Every. Arie. Arie. Arie. Arie. Arie. Arie. Arie. Arie. Arie. Arie. Arie. Uri. Arie. Arie. Arie. Arie. Arie. Arie salary. Salary. Salary. Celery. Salary. Celery. Salary. Salary. Salary. Salary. Salary. Celery. Salary. Salary. Salary. Celery. Salary. Celery. Salary. Celery. So that's the episode for today, guys. I hope you've enjoyed it. I know it's a little confusing. I wouldn't worry too much about nailing the pronunciation between these two things. As I said, context is almost always going to save you here, where people will understand whether or not you pronounce these words exactly correct. They'll know what you're talking about. If you have any other words or any other sounds that you're finding difficult in English, then feel free to send me a message on Facebook or put a comment on this post when I put it up and tell me about the words or the sounds that you're having trouble with. Until next time guys. All the best. Well.

Transcript of AE 380 REPLAY - How To Improve Your Australian Accent With Candice Moll – Part 2

G'day guys! Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, the number one Aussie English podcast with the sole focus of teaching you guys Australian English. Today is the second episode where you get to learn a bit about perfecting the Aussie English accent.

So you're getting these tips from one of Candice Moll's videos on YouTube. She's been kind enough to allow me to use the audio on the podcast here, to give you guys exposure to a female with an Australian accent, a female with an Australian accent from a different part of Australia. So unlike me, I'm from Victoria and I have a Melbourne general Australian accent.

Candice is from South Australia. She grew up in Adelaide. She's a voice actor as well as an actress. And yeah, make sure you jump over to her YouTube channel, give her a thumbs up, check these videos out because they do have a lot of movements involved where she explains what's happening with the mouth and how to make these sounds.

Make sure that you also go and visit her website at www.candicemoll.com. The links will be in this episode, guys. Anyway, that's enough of this intro. Thanks, Candice. You're a freaking legend. And guys, go over there, say hello and enjoy this episode. Let's go.

Hello, YouTube! My name is Candice and I'm here to speak to you a little bit about the Australian accent or dialect. I did a little video a while back, just with a couple of tips that I thought might interest some people, and the video got an overwhelming response.

So I thought that I would give you guys a little bit more because there seems to be an interest. So I'm going to break down a few things and hope that it helps some people who are interested in learning how to do different accents and dialects.

So the Australian accent, there are basically three types of Australian accents. If you want to know a little bit more about this in more detail, check out Aussie English on YouTube because he's got some great information, but I'll touch on it briefly.

So the first type of Australian dialect is the broad dialect. Basically, the further north you go in Australia, the broader the accent gets. A broad accent. A good example would be Steve Irwin or Crocodile Dundee. So this is what a lot of countries will think about when they think of the Australian accent. It's very stereotypical and very strong.

Second one is the general dialect. That's I think that that's what I speak. It's a bit more mild, a bit more natural sounding.

And then the third is the cultivated or received pronunciation. So cultivated it has a bit more of a British sound. It sounds a bit more posh. Usually people that speak with a cultivated accent have sometimes they've done extensive university. So highly educated. Not to say that other Australians aren't. It just seems to be a bit of a, a bit of a thing that happens when you spend 100 years at university.

Also, people who travel a lot might end up with a bit of a cultivated accent if their parents are British or if they grew up in the theatre, then they might have a cultivated accent. So they're the three.

I'm going to aim to give you a bit of a general accent. Sometimes I'll give you the broad version, so that you can- sometimes it's a bit easier to go for the exaggerated sound and then pull it back into something a little bit more natural sounding. So we'll see how we go. We'll have a bit of a play.

I'm going to give you some sounds. I'll do my very best to explain it. If I don't make sense to you, do another search and find another video because maybe someone else can. But I hope I can help some people to understand the dialect a little bit better.

So let's start with the short sounds. Our diphthongs, our long vowel sounds, they're all diphthongs and they're a bit silly. We basically take all of our short vowel sounds, mush them together, and then call it a long vowel sound. So let's deal with that later.

We'll start with the short ones. They're a bit easier. Okay! Starting with the short A sound. It's /a/. Your cheeks are nice and high, and you open your mouth wide and just make a little guttural sound in your throat and stop it with your throat and say /a/, /a/.

So I'm going to say some words. I'll leave a little bit of a space. You can repeat them back to me. Say it out loud if you need to go into a different room and close the door so no one hears you, do that. Just pause me. I'll still be here.

All right. So, first word: back. Back. And. And. At. At. Cheeks are nice and high. At. Alas. Alas. These words will confuse the Americans because we actually emphasise the first syllable in these words.

If ever there is a word that you're not sure how to pronounce, a lot of the time I might even say most of the time, if we pronounce it differently to the way that Americans pronounce it. So United States, Americans, then probably you should just emphasise the first syllable.

For example, adult. The emphasis is on the /a/ adult. Another one is address. Not address. A-ddress. And then everybody's favourite. Aluminium. Aluminium. Aluminium. Okay.

The short E sound is /e/. So drop your cheeks down from the /a/ sound and you're going to widen your mouth and just say /e/ /e/. Almost pull your chin back a bit too, /e/. End. Energy. Enter. Electric.

Electric. Sometimes we drop the C in this one too, and say /ele(c)tric/. /ele(c)tric/ or /elecTric/, depending on how lazy you feel. Both are correct. Especially. /Especially/ /e./.

And then a fun one for you. Esky! An 'esky' is a cooler or a cool box where you might put your drinks in the summertime. Esky. Just making sure my microphone is on. Good!

The short I sound. /ee/ this one, cheeks go right back up again. /ee/ so it's like you're pulling your cheeks back and saying 'eeee!' But then just keeping it really short. /ee/ It. In. Make sure that sound is nice and high. In. Is. Ill. Image. Instance. Information. Information. Information. Okay.

The short O sound. The short O sound is an /o/, so you want to make your mouth nice and long. You're making an oval shape with your mouth, and it's almost like your lips stick out just a little bit. /o/ /o/. All right. So give this a go. On. On. Off. Of. Object. Observation. And then this one's a tricky one. Orange.

So I've heard a lot of Americans say /owrenj/. It's not. It's /orenj/. /o/, okay.

You got the Short U sound. /uh/ Under. /uh/ So right. So it's just a little bit lazier than an /a/. It's more, it's just pull your sides in a little bit and just go /a/ /uh/ /a/. You see that? /uh/. Under. Up. Us. Umbrella. About. About. America. Good.

And the /ah/ sound. This is A H. So this is, this is, yeah, A H. You'll hear it. So you're going to go /ah/ /ah/. Yeah. /ah/ It's almost like a vocal warm up. /ah/ All right. Ask. Answer. Aren't. After. Good.

I'm gonna touch on the schwa sound. So the schwa is like the resting place. It's like an unstressed vowel sound. And the reason I'm going to put it right here is because it's very similar to /a/ and /uh/. It's like an in-between of those two.

So where /uh/ as in 'up' is really short, and /ah/ as in 'ask' is longer. The schwa sound is so minute, but it's in between those two. Okay, so ours, we use it as a thinking sound. We say 'um', 'um', 'um', or if we're thinking on a 'uh', so it's just really lazy, /uh/, lazy kind of sound. A

nd often it's just like, imagine you're being punched in the guts and you're going, /uh/, /uh/, it's kind of like that, too. All right.

So I don't know if this is going to make any sense to you, but see how you go with some of these words. All right, so the schwa sound: /əmazing/. /ə/, the first A, /əmazing/. So you see how it's kind of just a bit longer than /ah/ and a bit shorter than /uh/, /əmazing/. 'Syringe', the /s/, 'syringe'.

And then we also use the schwa sound in replacing an R at the end of words. So for example, after the first A is an R, and the second A is a schwa. After. Another one is 'other' 'other'. Good.

Oh! Important one: Australia Australia. We say it with four syllables. "au" is a bit of a schwa, /uh/ "stray" "lee" /uh/. Same again at the end. Australia. Good. Okay.

The /aw/ sound. This is A W /aw/. So this is a bit of a tricky one. What you're going to do is make a round shape with your lips, pull your chin back, right back towards your throat. And my tongue is, it's like the back of my tongue is lifting towards the roof of my mouth. /aw/. But because I'm pulling my chin down, it doesn't quite reach /aw/ /aw/.

Okay, so a couple of words. Awesome. Awesome. All. All. Notice how I close my chin? I bring my chin back up for the L sound. All. All. Okay.

And then we also use this sound if an O is followed by an R. /or/ as in O R /or/. Order, order. Adorable. We do pronounce the R in that one. Adorable. And last one: normal. Good.

And lucky last, short double O sound. So this one. I said this in my last video too. It's a bit like a sound a monkey makes. /o/ /o/ /oo/ /oo/. Okay, so you're just going to make a really small circle with your lips and say O and it's coming from your throat /oo/ /oo/. So I can actually feel this part of my throat. I can, I can feel that when I'm saying, /oh/, okay. /oo/. Book. Look. /oo/, look. Cook or cooking.

And then the L makes these ones a bit tricky: Cool. So it sounds like you're saying "coo-el" but it's not really that exaggerated. It's just 'cool'. Cool. Pool, is another one. Pool.

Okay, so, I'm going to leave it there for today. I hope you enjoyed yourself. I did, and I'll do another couple of videos and look at the long vowel sounds and anything else I can think of. If you have any questions, feel free to to type them out and I'll see if I can get to them in a video. Keep looking, keep learning, keep searching for new things and I'll see you next time. Bye.

Okay, guys. So that was Candice Moll from YouTube. Candice Moll, two words. Or you can find her at www.CandiceMoll.com. The links will be in the episode. I hope you enjoyed it guys. And remember to go over to her YouTube channel, give her a thumbs up and subscribe! Cheers guys! Chat soon.

Transcript of AE 377 REPLAY - Interview: How To Improve Your Australian Accent with Candice Moll - Part 1

G'day guys. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today I have something a little different, a little special for you guys. I've contacted a friend of mine from YouTube, Candice Moll, who is a fellow Australian, but she's living abroad. She's an actor, and a voice actor, and is really good with accents.

She's made a few really good videos on YouTube describing how to replicate an Australian accent. So I thought that I would try to kill two birds with one stone and not only have a fellow Australian English speaker on the podcast, or at least the audio from one of her videos on the podcast, but also a video talking about how to perfect an Australian accent. Okay, so hopefully you guys enjoy this video.

You can jump over to her channel on YouTube at Candice Moll. That's two words C A N D I C E M O L L. Okay. And the link will be in this episode. And you can also go and visit her at www.CandiceMoll.com So make sure you go over there, subscribe to her channel and say g'day from Aussie English. Enjoy the episode guys.

Hello there, YouTubers! My name is Candice and I am an Australian actor. And I, I've been meaning to make this video for a little while because one of the things that I do is voice acting. Which means that I need to learn new accents on a regular basis. And one of the things that I do often is look up on YouTube to see how different accents and dialects work.

So I thought that I would do one for anyone trying to learn how to use an Australian dialect. Because it is a tricky one, and often there is a bit of confusion between different types of English or British accents. And they tend to merge together a little bit with Australian things, and it becomes a bit of a, a bit of a mix.

So I thought that I would just give you a couple of little tips, just in case you're trying to learn the Australian accent. Now my accent is a little bit mild, largely because I've done a lot of travelling and I currently live in the US. However, I'm also from Adelaide, so Adelaide is in South Australia. And it's a little bit different from Sydney. So if I say things a little bit differently to how you would expect, that's probably why. The differences in the dialects in Australia are not as strong as they are in the UK or in the US. But there are slight differences, so I might touch on that a little bit.

So the first thing I'm going to talk about is- and this is, I'm focusing on things that you may not have heard before. There's a couple of different videos online about different Australians talking about different things, but I didn't see any that touched on this.

So the first thing we're going to talk about is, you may have heard, obviously, that Australians don't pronounce their R at the end of words. So, what tends to happen is like with the Boston accent. You basically replace the R with an H so /car/ becomes /cah/. Anything that ends in the R sound, just keep your mouth open and say /ah/ instead. Just like that.

So the interesting thing is that there is a bit of an exception to the rule. When you have two vowel sounds together in a sentence. So the end of one word, and the beginning of another word, if it's a vowel sound, we put a connecting R in the middle.

So people often say, Americans will often say to me, Oh, Australians put Rs where they don't belong. That's true. And it's just so that the flow of the speech is a little bit easier for us.

So, for example, if I were to say "Fiona is going", I would say /Fiona(r)is going/. /Fiona(r)is/.

The R comes at the beginning of the second word. /Fiona(r)is coming./ /Fiona(r)is coming./ So it sounds like I'm saying /Fionar/, but I'm not. I'm putting an R in between the two vowel sounds.

Another example might be "The car is moving." Now that does end in an R. The letter R, but of course we don't pronounce the letter R. It's still a R which sounds like a vowel sound. So we would say instead of /the car is moving/ we would say /the ca(r)is moving/, /the ca(r)is moving/, /the ca(r)is moving/. Okay, so that's one little trick to help your Australian accent sound a bit more authentic.

The other thing that I wanted to talk about was, and this is really tricky for a lot of Americans who are trying to do an Australian accent, they often turn it into a bad English or British accent or dialect, I should say dialect. So basically a little trick that might help you with that.

The difference between, for example, the word 'what'. The shape of the mouth stays the same for a lot of British dialects and the Australian dialect. So it's a /oah/ /oah/, it's not /ah/, it's /oah/ so down. But the mistake that a lot of people make is that they try to stop the sound in their throat. And it sounds like /wot/, /wot/ That's what makes it sound British.

What Australians do is actually stop the sound by placing their tongue here and say, you don't pronounce the T, it's just /woat/ /woat/. So can you hear the difference between /wot/ and /woat/? Very slight difference. /wot/ /woat/ /wot/ /woat/ Very slight difference, but it will help you to get a true, authentic Australian sound.

This is also true for the D sound. The word 'good'. The difference- I know there's so many different dialects with British, but I'm more thinking about just standard PR British. The D, like they might say, for example 'good', right? So they'd say /gud/. Ignore my British accent if it's wrong because it's difficult to switch back and forth.

But what we say, the word 'good', it's a /oo/ /good/ like a monkey. /oo/ But we don't always pronounce the D. We'd say /good/. Same again. /good/ /good/ /good/ instead of /gud/ /good/. Right. "Yeah. That's good. That's really good." So I'm not pronouncing the D, I'm just placing my tongue right there. Okay.

There are exceptions to the rules, of course. And occasionally someone might pronounce a T or a D. It's not wrong. Often, for example, the T will be pronounced a little bit heavier if someone's annoyed. 'Don't' /don't/ or /don't/. If you five don't.

So, that takes me on to the O sound. Now there are differences between the states. They're so mild. But I'm going to touch on them because I'm from Adelaide. I'm not from Sydney, so it's important that you can just start to train your ear to hear different things.

So the difference between an Adelaide 'no' and a Sydney 'no' is Sydney is a little bit wider. They go out then in. /nao/ /nao/ Right. /ao/ /ao/. So start on an /ao/ right. It's ridiculous I know.

But in in Adelaide we tend to go in and out. /noi/ /noi/ /noi/. Right. That's exaggerated. So the Adelaide sound sounds a bit like 'doink' the O I that you might have in 'doink'. /noi/ /noi/ Doink. /noi/ right.

But with Sydney, you go out then in and you say /nao/. And if you're new to accents, check out Amy Walker's videos on YouTube because she's very, very good. And I liked the way she spoke about the "no" sound. If you're American, imagine that you're saying with your accent. N A R /nar/, right. /nar/ /nar/, and then drop the R off the end. /nao/ /nao/ /nao/.

So it's, that's more of a Sydney sound where it's /nao/, /nao/. Right. Instead of /noi/, /noi/. And that's the same with "don't" and any O sound.

So what made me think of "don't" was the /don't/ because that's how little kids tell you that they're annoyed. "Don't!"

So I think that that's all from me today. There's a couple of little things just to get you moving along and yeah, do look for some other things. Check out some other videos. And by all powers combined, you will have an Australian accent. Bye!

Okay, guys. So that was Candice Moll from YouTube. Candice Moll, two words. Or you can find her at www.candicemoll.com. The links will be in the episode. I hope you enjoyed it guys, and remember to go over to her YouTube channel, give her a thumbs up and subscribe! Cheers guys! Chat soon.

Transcript of AE 393 REPLAY – Interview: Rev Heads, Car Accidents, & Car Culture in Australia with James Buchan

G'day, guys, and welcome to Aussie English. My objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken Down Under. So whether you want to speak like a fair dinkum Aussie or you just want to understand what the flippin' hell we're on about when we're having a yarn, you've come to the right place. So sit back, grab a cuppa and enjoy Aussie English.

G'day, guys. Welcome to the Aussie English podcast, the number one podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So today's episode is obviously an interview episode. I had the pleasure of interviewing one of my childhood friends from high school, James Buchan. He has been a dear friend for probably the better part of eighteen years, and he's a bit of a revhead. So we've talked about cars, we've talked about Japanese cars, Australian cars and how he got into cars as a kid, how he started to appreciate them and develop a passion for cars.

We also talked about when he was in a car accident, which was an interesting story that we'll get into here. And then we go on to discuss what car culture is like in Australia. So today's episode is a good one. It's just the first half of the total interview. So this interview was about 40 to 50 minutes long.

The second half, we talk about what you need to do to buy a car in Australia and that will come up in the next couple of weeks. So keep an eye out for that. Just a few housekeeping messages before we get started, guys.

Remember, if you're enjoying these episodes, whether they're the interview episodes or the other ones and you would like to support the podcast, you can do so via my Patreon page. This is where you guys can get behind me and the Aussie English podcast and donate a small amount of money on a monthly basis in order to keep me doing what I'm doing. So you can donate anything from one dollar a month upwards. And it's a way of giving back to a resource that I hope is helping you learn Australian English.

Apart from that, guys, if you're a bit of a nerd and you enjoy studying Australian English in more depth and you would like to get more out of this interview episode, make sure you sign up to be a student in the Aussie English Classroom, where you will get a five to ten minute breakdown of this interview, where we talk more in depth about the vocab, the kind of language he uses, as well as the slang terms and expressions. Okay, guys, and you'll get a quiz at the end of that as well.

Anyway, let's dive into the interview, guys, and I'll play you the call of a yellow tailed black cockatoo to take us in. Listen to this.

Hey, guys, welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today, I have a special guest with me, one of my best friends from high school, who I probably know now longer than half my entire life. It's pretty crazy, isn't it, when I think about it like that? Yeah. So James and I went to high school all through high school together, and we've been friends since after high school. We've hung out. It's been like 10 or 11 years now. It has been cool.

Yeah.

And I thought I would get James on because I guess you would explain yourself as being a bit of a rev head, James, just to say the least, into cars. Just slightly.

Yeah, that's probably the best way of putting it. I am a bit of a petrol head, although perhaps with a little bit more active in, I guess like a motoring enthusiast or petrol head seen when I was younger these days on. Although I can appreciate a fine motor vehicle, but I don't really get involved with many groups or go to meets, any of that kind of stuff. There are certain aspects of that car culture, especially in Australia that I'm not a huge fan of. So I appreciate a nice car. I can understand the engineering behind it, but I'm not what you would call one of these people that goes out and is really full on. I just..

Just partially.

Partially for it.

Just a bit of a hobby. More than more than an obsession.

That's right. That's right. Yeah.

Yes. I thought it'd be good to have James on because he can talk about I guess we can go through buying and selling a car in Australia, the different kind of cars that you'll find here, maybe what a ute is the Holden and Ford conflict.

Yep.

And then I guess we can just start with your story. How did you get into cars and from what age?

I guess ever since I was born, I've always sort of had an obsession with cars, or at least so my parents tell me. They had an old Mitsubishi Sigma wagon. So they were, I think they called it a Chrysler Sigma originally before Mitsubishi bought the rights to it. Anyway, my parents had this Blue Sigma wagon, and apparently when I was a little baby, I was fascinated by the wheels and everything about it. And I guess from there, I sort of got into, I guess, anything that was sort of mechanical. So like earth moving equipment and stuff. And then ever since, I guess I was sort of like a teenager from then on, it was just cars. Mainly European exotics. But then I guess my world was sort of opened up to Japanese cars and, you know, to a lesser extent, I guess Australian cars and all of the other different, you know, nationalities of vehicles. And they're all got interesting, that there's always something interesting behind them. So.

And is it a family thing, too? Was that the rest of your family were interested in motors and vehicles, or was it just you?

So maybe it was genetic, you might say. Some might say, my- on my father's side, my dad was interested in cars. His father was a mechanic. And on my mother's side, my grandfather, he had 39 cars throughout his lifetime.

39.

39. So every year just about he would go and buy another car. And every car was the best car he'd ever owned, even if it was a complete junk box. Suddenly got better and better than now. Obviously, he only got better and better, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure he took a backward step several times. But he did have a really nice Nissan Skyline on one point, so that was a pretty cool car.

But then your father is well as into motors. Into cars.

Yeah.

And your brother, too.

That's right. Yeah. So my brother knows about them as well, and he would sometimes educate me or vice versa. So if there was something interesting out there, you know, point me in that direction and say, take a look at this. And yeah, I remember his first his first car because throughout high school I didn't really have a job. And then when I was old enough to drive, I had to borrow Mum and Dad's car and I said to my brother, Look, one of my biggest regrets was not getting a job sooner so that when I was able to drive I could get a car.

So I guess he took those lessons on board and his first car was a Toyota Supra. So he paid seventeen grand for this car. This was, I don't know, like 2007.

And to put that in context, he'd saved all this money during Year 11 and Year 12 at high school. So not only was he during high school full time. Right. But he was working after school weekends and somehow managed to save seven thousand for this Toyota Supra.

And I guess my first drive of that thing coming from Camry's or Commodores- V6 Commodores and so on. I remember I had my first drive of this thing and just the power was unbelievable. And from that point, I guess I was hooked. I was on the fence as to what I thought about Japanese cars before then. But I was you know, after that drive, I was hooked.

So what is it like for you when you get into there and you say you get into that car and you drive it for the first time and it's incredibly fast, what are the emotions you're feeling? And, you know, is it- For you, is it the speed? Or is it the sound or is it a combination of all of it? That's an experience.

It's all of that thing. It's a sensory kind of overload. Because you get you know, you get the smell of the interior. It's a Japanese car made in the mid nineties. So you get this weird smell of, perhaps, with some of them soy sauce, Japanese cigarettes, the smell of the interior. You get in there and then you get the sound of the engine and then I guess the speed and the way it feels.

And I guess to put that in context, the reason you get those smells with these cars is because they've been imported from Japan.

That's right.

To Australia.

Yeah.

These specific cars.

Yeah. So, yeah, I had my first drive and I guess I was hooked after that.

What was it like? Can you run me through like when you first stepped in the car and you put your foot down, what was the feeling like?

Coming from little four banger Camry's, or four cylinder Camry's, and V6 Commodores? This, you know, it was a nice big straight six. So it had a lot of talk. It just felt like it was ready to go in every gear that was. And it didn't weigh a huge amount really. So it felt good.

Was it frightening at all?

It probably would have been stupid if I had had that car from a young age. Yeah. Because I would have got myself into a lot of trouble with it.

And why do you think that is with younger kids to buying these sorts of cars and then ending up in accidents? Is it just a common occurrence? Is it and is it obviously just males, mostly?

For the most part, it's just males. But again, I guess it's like anything, you've got something else that get into cars and like any young person, I guess, the brain's not fully developed. And, you know, when you've got a lot of power and you've got irresponsibility, I guess, or that feeling of showing off, it's yeah, it can be a recipe for disaster. So I can understand why the government has imposed legislations banning turbo and V8 cars for P-platers. Or previously, when I was a P-plater, I don't think they had power to weight ratio.

So what would you say to yourself if you could speak to yourself when you were 17 or 18 and give yourself advice on the first car that you would own, would you say go for the most powerful? Or now with all the wisdom that you have, would you say just take it easy?

Absolutely. Take it easy. You know, I had a Camry and thinking about it now like that, that's still a good car. Now, it was manual. So enough to have a little bit of fun with, but it was practical at the same time. It was good on fuel. You couldn't get yourself into too much trouble with it. So if you're just looking for a car to get from A to B, that's still sort of a right.

That was a good car. And if you really want to go crazy later on, just wait until you're a little bit older. You know, got all the time in the world. You don't need to- And also, the other thing is, as a P-plater, that you're restricted from getting as a young person, you're restricted from getting something insanely powerful anyway. So what's the point? Just wait and then really see, I guess, to see if it's for you, because it's a slippery slope. You can spend a lot of money on cars modifying them.

Yeah. And so what happens when you do have you been in anything that was frighteningly quick and had any interesting experiences with that, James?

I have indeed. So I had a friend with a Mazda RX7. That was, yeah, he'd spent a considerable amount of money on this engine, a standalone engine management system. The entire engine was completely built, had a pretty big single turbo on it. And yeah, that thing just lit the tires up at any speed. I can recall the speedo being, you know, saying something like two hundred something and it felt like the wheels are spinning. Yeah, it was. That was actually- and I guess when I was younger, I didn't, I sort of felt like indestructible so that, you know, you do those kind of speeds. And that was OK. But I guess now that I have been you know, I've had a couple of accidents. Nowadays, I very much feel nervous getting into anything that's even driven slightly, quickly or irresponsibly.

Some of my friends up in Melbourne, they, you know, from they use me in Top Gear reference called Captain Slow, James May in Top Gear. He gets called Captain Slow. And that's that's sort of my nickname as well now. But yeah.

That's a derogatory term. But at the same time, it's sort of a badge of honour of being the most responsible.

Yeah, that's, you know, it's genuinely scary. After the RX7, I went in a big single turbo Supra up in Melbourne. That thing had engine management system, another for that big single turbo charge, and it just spun the wheels. First, second, third, fourth. And I remember being I didn't like the feeling of not being in control as a passenger. And then I had to turn in a Nissan GT-R R35. And again, it was the same feeling except I guess slightly lesser extent. This R35 had a lot of security and safety features. So it's not that going really, really fast. You're ever going to be indestructible. But it was, it was slightly safer because you had airbags and ABS brakes.

So ten years back to the RX7, can you talk us through that experience and what it was like?

Sure. So I got in it and it was loud. It was noisy. And rotary engines, they have like a certain unique sound kind of sound.

And I guess to people who don't know what a rotary sort of looks like, imagine a circle and imagine a corn chip or Dorito. And basically the corn chip moves around inside this circle. And it sort of produces this unique noise that only really, I guess, Mazda has used. The engine had been fully built. I think there was something to the tune of almost 20,000 dollars spent on this engine and Turbo. And rotary's famously, they're known for not having any torque because they're not a big engine or anything like one point three litres. So you have to rev them up.

And this thing was revved really properly hard and the big turbo came on. The wheels would light up. It would struggle for traction. Anyway, I had some time off one day I was between jobs. This is when I was studying at uni and I thought I'd go and see a friend who had this RX7. He'd been building it and he wanted to show it off to me. So we went for a drive and perhaps slightly, you know, an ominous sign. It didn't really start very well. There are a couple of problems with it stalling. So maybe that was a sign that the day was not exactly off to a great start.

And yeah, so we went for a drive and the it was, as you would expect, it was frightening. The wheels were spinning. It was going really, really fast. And anyway, we went down to Point Lonsdale. We were just coming down from Ocean Grove. And we went around a corner, I wouldn't say this corner was particularly fast, we just went round at 60, but this RX7 was old. The tires weren't a staggered set up, so they were the same size tyres front and back. And perhaps the owner had spent a considerable amount of money on the engine. But I don't know what kind of tires fitted to this car. And maybe it was slightly twitchy in the power delivery.

But we came around this corner. We weren't going particularly fast at this point. But I think the Turbo is kind of old school as well. It wasn't a modern, responsive ball bearing turbo. It was an old school T67, sort of journal bearing kind of laggy, but gives a really big kick when it comes on. So it gave this big kick, I guess, as it came on.

And the car just it just sort of locked up as we were going around this corner. The rear end just sort of stepped out. And by that point, both myself and the driver were just passengers. And I guess when, whenever you have sort of a scary experience, a lot of people will say that things happen in slow motion. And it was certainly true for this, that this accident that was going to happen so I could see the power pole and I could see we were sliding towards it.

And we, you know, we had, I'd say maybe five seconds or so you saw it and you thought, We're going to crash here! So I sort of move towards the centre of the car and it's an old RX7. It hadn't, didn't have a safety cell, didn't have any ABS brakes, didn't have any airbags. And so I tried to move my body towards the centre of the car knowing that we were going to hit this pole. And we did.

And we hit the pole, my nose hit the dashboard, and instantly it felt pretty sore. And the first thing I think I saw, the engine stopped straight away. It just cut out. And the first thing I said was, We've got to get out of here. Maybe that's being a young Australian thing, not wanting to get into any trouble because we've just knocked down a power pole. Some powerlines have come down.

The car wouldn't restart. And I couldn't get out because my door had been, my door had been sort of banged shut, I guess with the impact of the power pole. My nose was obviously hurting quite considerably. Anyway, I guess as luck would have it, some people came out of the house and saw what had happened. And then some guy that I wish I'd known from Geelong College was driving past in in a Toyota Land Cruiser.

And I vaguely recognised this guy from college. We'd we'd seen each other one once or twice. He vaguely recognised me and could see the predicament we were in and offered us a tow and removed the car from the pole. We pushed the car to the side of the road and we're able to survey the damage. I have some pictures on my computer that I might be able to send to you later on, the slightly grainy from one of the first camera phones. But give us an idea of the force involved.

I guess I was pretty lucky because if if that had happened and if the pole had been slightly further forward, thaT could have been my head that it hit the pole. Whereas I guess it hit the pillar of the car where there was the most strength. You don't need a big hit to the head to kill you, or to cause any damage. We're going particularly fast.

But I'd just say the car was twitchy. The power delivery was kind of, you know, spiky and it all happened so quickly. Yeah, you've really got to be very careful. My nose, as it turns out, was broken. My mum, I should point out, did not like the guy before he'd been involved in the crash. She wasn't a huge fan of the owner of this car. Anyway, I came home and I sort of mentioned to my dad what had happened and said, Please don't tell Mum.

And he didn't to his credit, but my nose was hurting. And I tried to go through a couple of days and it was not good. So I've mentioned mentioned that my nose was sore and I eventually fessed up to what had happened. And, you know, you can understand when any parents angry. We've all been there. You've done something where the parents are not happy.

And I got taken to the doctor and they did the X-ray scans and so on. And that sort of revealed that my nose had been broken and that it was shattered. But I'd left it. By this point, it had been about two weeks since you get the results from the scans, you know, you followed up with consultations and so on, and they'd said, Well, look, by this point, the nose had already started to heal. If you want to, if you want to fix it up, the nose has to be broken. you need a nose job. And when I looked at it, they're like, it's really not that bad.

You've got a better one than me. I've been for exactly the same thing, but with jujitsu, and getting a knee to the face.

Yeah.

Just left it too long and so.

Yeah, yeah. So I just sort of like well you know what, it's not. A cool story, but in hindsight, look, it's an interesting story, and it certainly taught me a lot of valuable lessons, I guess.

What do you think it taught you? And was it a turning point for your life, especially being behind the wheel of a powerful car, or a passenger in a powerful car?

Yeah, you know, if you want to go and behave like that, there's a track you can't be involved in, like a motor sports club if you want to go and drift the skid days. I've done one of those before. They're fun. They're in a perfectly safe, controlled environment. If you're in a powerful car, there's just if you've got friends, that's OK. But just take it easy and relax. You know, you're going to get there in the end. And yeah, maybe spend a little bit more on a nice wide set of sticky rubber that, you know, doesn't that that's not going to let go. You know, I guess these days we're lucky as well. We've got modern engine management systems and turbochargers. So these days we could have a nice, responsive car. So you're not going to have that kind of like lightning that really sudden power band where it just sort of kicks in all of a sudden. So that can be somewhat eliminated with cars these days. So I'd like to think that an accident like that, it it is preventable.

So are you glad you went through that experience or if you could go back, would you say, James, don't get in the car?

No, to an extent, yeah. I'm glad that I went through that experience because I've learnt a valuable lesson from that. And I would certainly recommend to younger people, you know, perhaps don't get in that car if it's a really, really, really, really fast one. Or if you're getting into a car with someone who is perhaps not the most responsible behind the wheel. But I'd say it was a good experience for me. I think I learnt a lot and I don't mind being called Captain Slow. That's quite a ride.

You get there in the end, slow and steady wins the race.

Yeah, sometimes it's just nice to cruise and relax, put on some music or something. Yeah.

So I guess changing gears a little bit, pun intended. What's the difference between car culture in Australia and car culture elsewhere, whether it's whether it's America, Britain or Japan or Europe, whatever it is. Do we have a unique car culture here in Australia?

I'd certainly say we do. We perhaps had a stronger car culture when Holden and Ford were producing, you know, locally delivered built cars. But since those two factories have closed down, perhaps the car culture, they will still exist. But it's just going through a transitional phase. I don't think it'll be as strong anymore because Holden and Ford, there was that rivalry.

I was going to get to that. I wanted to ask you, where does that come from? I don't know that much about it, but I would love to know how it evolved. If you know much about it and can shed light on that.

I know a little bit. Perhaps I'm not as ingrained into that kind of culture as some people because I'm primarily I prefer my Japanese cars. But your parents, when they were growing up, they generally had the choice of they had the choice of either a Holden or Ford, you know, fleet cars, that kind of thing. And I guess you were born and you grew up with loyalty or allegiance to one brand or the other. I'm sure people can relate to that. And..

Almost like football teams. Soccer team.

Exactly. Yeah. People know what allegiances are like. And that's that's what Holden and Ford were like. You had you had an allegiance to that. And that was..

That was weird because that happened to me. But it it wasn't sort of by choice. I started working in a pizza shop and as luck had it, the I think one of the guys there had a Holden and the rest of the guys then decided to get Holden's. And therefore, I felt this kind of pressure to fit in. I want to impress.

Yes.

You know, I guess, yeah, it mainly just fit in and impress. And so I ended up getting a Holden.

Yeah.

And that's how it sort of manifested.

Yeah. And I can totally relate to that. I was also Holden. My parents had several, they had a vehicle Commodore, they had the VT and that was jus,t that was what you did. That was your allegiance. But some people it was for Fords.

Yeah.

And I remember when my parents were looking at getting another car, they had the Commodore and they ended up getting this Camry and traders I wanted to I wanted to keep the the Commodore for myself and they could roll around in the Camry. But I guess they had other ideas and they gave me the Camry just to tease me. And look, you know, hindsight is probably a small thing because, you know, I got to experience the Japanese car, and car with little a little less power. And that's, I guess, what sort of turned me away, or turned my my interest away from Holden's to the more, the Japanese kind of cars.

So where do you think that comes from? Because there is a massive following of just Japanese style. Because you would have your followings of European cars, maybe American cars, but there seems to be, especially with younger people,

The JDM..

.. Obsession with Japanese cars. Why is that?

They're well built. They're much more, I guess, technologically advanced than, say, some of the Australian the Australian offerings. And they're just were different. The imported cars, they were just sort of seen as somewhat rarer. And a lot of them as well were turbo charged.

So I guess with the Australian cars, unless you had like a big a really big V8, you didn't have a huge amount of options for getting more power out of them. Whereas with these little Japanese cars, I call them little, you could whack a bleed valve on the turbo charge or an electronic boost controller and exhaust and maybe a bigger intercooler. You can increase the power heaps.

And it's just, it's just so easy with any turbo car, you know, you just bleed off some of the air from that turbocharger and run more boost. And it just, they love it. And that's why I think that's why that's my perception as to why Japanese car culture has just really sort of taken off in Australia. Because if you can run more boost, make a lot more power cheaply and easily. I guess the other good thing about turbo cars is that, well, when they're on them, when you're on the throttle, you use a lot of fuel. But when you're not, they're not so bad. That is, if you haven't fitted massive fuel injectors and aftermarket management systems. But for the most part, when you're not on the boost, they're pretty good on the fuel. So. Yeah, well, they're better on the fuel if they're in good condition is a more efficient..

More fuel efficient?

Although I guess say my brothers have R33 Skyline that, he was an exception to that. That car would only get 250 kilometres to a tank. Perhaps there was something wrong with the oxygen sensor, but it drank the fuel like up.

Far out.

Good fun to drive though.

All right guys. So that was the first part of a two part series for this interview. The next part will come out in the next couple of weeks and it will be covering how to go about purchasing a car in Australia. So we'll give you tips about what to look for under the bonnet, the kinds of forms that you'll need, how much you're probably going to have to pay, what kinds of cars to go after all that good stuff. So keep an eye out for that. If you're in Australia or thinking of coming to Australia and purchasing a car.

Remember, guys, if you want to support the podcast, you can do so via my Patreon page. It helps me do what I do and continue to teach you Australian English. So I really appreciate everyone who signed up to be a patron so far. And if you want to study this interview in depth, you can sign up to be a student in the Aussie English Classroom where you can jump into the interviews in depth section and study all the previous interviews that have been on the podcast in depth. Anyway, guys, thanks for joining me today. I hope you have a killer week and I'll catch you soon! Catch ya!

Transcript of AE 430 REPLAY - Vlog: Is Canberra the Worst Australian City?

What has my view of Canberra been so far? So this is actually pretty rare for there to be clouds. Strangely enough, I was expecting Canberra to always be overcast. Canberra kind of has this reputation for being cold in Australia, so I assume that meant it was always overcast, lots of rain, and just cold temperatures. But it's actually been really hot. I mean, not, you know, not 30, 40 degrees, but every single day has been mid-twenties. And as soon as you walk outside and the sun hits you, because usually there are no clouds, you heat up really quickly and the sun burns.

So Canberra's actually at about seven 700m elevation, and I'm used to living in about zero, right at the sea level. And so you're actually closer to the sun higher up in the atmosphere. So I don't know if that has something to do with it. And the reason that Canberra is cold, even though it's elevated, I guess that's part of the reason. But it's in sort of a basin shape of mountains.

So there's sort of a circular thing of mountains that go up higher. You might be able to see them here behind me, right over there. That set of mountains kind of rings the whole way around Canberra, you know. And so that prevents a lot of air movement. It traps the cold air that occurs here overnight. And that's why Canberra apparently gets really cold in the evenings.

So hasn't been too bad though to be honest. I've been actually quite warm at night time and have had to have have had to actually open the window quite a bit and let the air in. And only sort of 3 or 4 in the morning do I start getting cold, close the window and put my blankets on.

So, Canberra, climate wise, is better than I expected, but at the same time it's almost too sunny. I kind of enjoy days like this where right now it's about 12 p.m. so it's lunchtime and I can come out and go walking. But usually, at least more recently, these clouds haven't been here and it's just been just just brutal sunlight coming down and there're no shade and, you know, kind of worried about getting sunburnt and everything. I've got sunscreen on today, but but yeah. So that's been fun.

Another interesting fact, I guess, about Canberra is the fact that on weekends, the place empties out. If you go into the city on the weekend and there's just no one there. It's really bizarre, I guess, because Canberra is a sort of, fly in, fly out location. And I'm just looking at the kangaroo tracks on the ground here. I'm not sure if you'll be able to see, but you can see these, these tracks on the ground here on this dirt road where the kangaroos have obviously come up from down here, and they go up into this field and we keep seeing them up here at night eating the grass.

So during the day, the kangaroos, while it's really, really sunny, will actually be sitting under these trees in the shade just chilling out. And they tend to be more active in the mornings when the sun's not yet all the way up. And then in the evenings, when the sun's come down quite a bit. And that's when you'll see them out in the fields here, just eating grass. And the crazy thing is, you know, we live about a kilometre that way currently. If these trees weren't here, you'd be able to see out the house that we're staying in.

So anyway, back to Canberra. What was I saying? What was I saying? Losing my track of thought. Anyway, yeah. So it's cold. It's not too bad, but the sun's really bright. The city's empty out on the weekends, which is nice when you cruise around. It's not really busy like Melbourne on weekends. Seems to be as busy as it is during the week. There seems to be no real difference. And so I was sort of expecting that. But that does not happen because everyone flies in. They work here in Parliament, usually in the government. And then on weekends they go home, they fly in, they go home, they fly in, they go home. That tends to be the pattern. So it hasn't been too bad. The only downside, I guess, for me is that it is not close to the beach. It's about 2.5 hours drive to get to the beach. Two hours, two-and-a-half hours.

The vegetation type. If I want to be really picky. This is all artificial forest. That's pine. These aren't native. These have been planted here as a pine farm, I guess. And they'll chop them down for wood at some point. And most of the surroundings tend to be pretty barren, tend to be pretty bare. Like this behind me here. There's no no real trees in this field. It's just low grass. And it's very dry out here. It's not very wet.

When we went to Batemans Bay recently, you can actually see as you drive through the landscape, we drove through the forests and the farms and everything. You can see the gradual change from really sort of, I guess sort of arid-ish. It's not really desert or anything like that, but dry country land and the closer to the coast you get, the wetter it gets. And I think two of the Great Dividing Range is there.

So we go over that. There's a lot of rainfall, a lot of water. And that's the kind of country that I really like in Australia. I really love the wet forests, a lot of rain. I love the beach. And so. So yeah, I might just turn around here, start heading back. So that's my opinion of Canberra so far. It's not too bad.

Another thing that I noticed the birds are the same species here. So we have things like currawongs, crows here. We have the magpie, the black and white magpie. I'm not sure if you can see them. Let's see if I can point it out. There's one over here in the grass. There's a few of them. There's 3 or 4 of them over here hunting for food. But one thing that I did notice, and I don't know if this is because I'm a bit of a biology nerd. They have different calls here, which is, you know, it's unsurprising.

And the magpies are a different subspecies of magpie here. They have again, they're nowhere near close enough for me to show you. But the magpies in this part of Australia have this black over their back. Where down south in Victoria they have a white patch there so you can see them and they tend to be just have slightly different patterning. But they have different calls. The crows have a different call. The currawongs have a different call. The magpies definitely have different calls.

And so I guess it's like anything with languages, right. They have different languages, different languages. So just something that I noticed when listening out and hearing these birds call in the mornings and during the day and in the afternoon. I know what birds they are, but they have different calls from the ones that I'm used to down south.

So this is probably long enough, guys! We've been chatting here for about 22 and a half minutes. Ah, one more funny thing to tell you. So there are these these bushes everywhere, right? These, this is blackberries. These are blackberries.

These are blackberry bushes. I don't know if there's any fruit that I can show you, but, they're an introduced pest. So you can probably see down here, they kind of go all the way down the back here. They're really, really spiky. And let's see if you can see this. So this is some, right here, that's been, that's died off. I don't know if it's been sprayed or not, but you can see those spikes. So they're really nasty. And these things were introduced when the British got here. I mean, I assume probably 100 or so years after the British got here, but they were introduced as a food source for people who wanted to go hiking.

So I'm just trying to find and they, you know, they're called blackberries for obvious reasons. They have these beautiful berries on them that are black, that are really tasty. And Kel and I were walking along here and we saw this big thicket of these blackberries, and I was like, Oh my God, yes, food! And picked a whole bunch and ate it, only to walk out and see a sign saying that they've been poisoned and 'Don't eat it'.

So, fortunately, though, there had been a lot of rain recently. I'll give you a look down here. And so I think the poison and everything like that was washed well and truly off the berries themselves. So nothing happened. We're all good. We're all good, I think. I think I can see some here.

Let's see if I can come down and show you what some of these berries look like. But again, they've been yeah, they've all been poisoned and died off anyway. So more blackberries here in the bushes. But there, another introduced pest species that some, you know, colonialist British idiot brought in to Australia thinking he was doing everyone a favour by putting this noxious weed along tracks like this so that people could just pick and eat it. But now you see these weeds everywhere in Australia and they're a big issue. And you'll see also over here all of these plants are pest species. They're all weeds.

Anyway, yeah. So. Oh and I can give you a good look at this. This is why it's a big problem, right? This is why it's a big problem. You'll see behind me. This is just all dense blackberry bushes. So you can't even walk through there because there's about two metres high of these blackberry bushes that are so prickly and horrible to get near that, you know, and all of this grey stuff here is dead blackberry bushes.

Anyway, guys, I hope you enjoy this sort of Walking With Pete episode where I just got to chill out with you, go for a walk, and give you a sort of review of Canberra and our experience here so far. I'm sure you'll hear more about it in the future. And yeah, thanks for joining me and I will chat to you guys soon. Peace out!

Transcript of AE 447 REPLAY - 7 Reasons to Study English in Australia

G'day guys. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today I am chatting to my friend Lorena from Go Study Australia about why Australia is such a good destination for studying. Whether it's English at university, some kind of course Australia is a great destination to come. Let's have a look.

So if we just imagine me now being someone who's living in Spain, Italy, France or South America, and I'm really, really keen to learn English abroad, why would you suggest Australia?

So Australia has a lot of good things compared to other English speaking countries. One of the best things is the work opportunities. Others speaking, English speaking countries don't have as many opportunities in terms of jobs. So for example, student visas for US don't come with working rights. So you go, you work and you study, but you can't work. Canada has, I'm not really sure, but they there's a limit. So there's I think up to the first six months you can't work. And Australia is one of the only countries that lets students actually be able to work part time while they're doing their studies. Another great thing about Australia, obviously, is that because it's so far away from from everything else, there's not a lot of people from your own nationality.

For now. For now. Right.

For now, yes. And that is good because when you're looking for a school or a place to learn English, you don't want to find yourself in a situation where you're surrounded by your own..

Yeah.

Nationality and your own language. That's the only way that you can really make forward with the language.

All right, guys, well, I hope you enjoyed that little interview with Lorena from Go Study Australia. Check out Go Study Australia if you are thinking about studying English in Australia or if you are already here doing it. Those guys are a free service and they will help you with things like finding a job, finding an English school, finding somewhere to live, all of that sort of stuff. So check out Go Study Australia.

Before we finish up though, I want to go through several other reasons why Australia is such a badass country when it comes to studying as an overseas student, so check this out.

We have a strong economy in Australia. Some of you may know this as it is relatively expensive to live here, but the living is pretty good. And a strong economy means that there are lots of jobs and that you're going to get paid relatively well. One little anecdote. When I was just a mere waiter whilst studying at university, I was a waiter and I was paid 25 AUD an hour. So I think anywhere between 19 and 20 something, 24, $25 an hour is going to be pretty good, and you're likely to find that kind of job if you do a bit of hunting.

Number two, Australia is politically stable. So what does this mean? It means that there aren't going to be a lot of massive changes when it comes to being a foreign citizen and opportunities in Australia. Australia's government puts a lot of emphasis on educating foreign students. This is a massive, massive, massive source of income for the Australian economy. So it is unlikely that many things are going to change overnight if you want to study in Australia.

Number three, we have an incredibly high level of education here. The standards for education are really high. Whether it's for schools, whether it's for the teachers and as well for the students, you guys are going to get held to a high standard. So you can be sure that if you get a degree in Australia, if you finish a language course in Australia, it is going to be top notch.

Number four, and I read this online, I don't know if it's 100% true, but Australia has apparently an incredibly good telecommunications network and system. So you're going to be able to use your phone. You're going to be able to call overseas. The prices aren't too expensive, they're not too crazy. And obviously you're going to get internet pretty much everywhere, though. Caveat: the internet speed somewhat sucks. Just be aware of that, okay, guys?

There are also a wide range of courses available, whether you're studying IELTS or IELTS exam preparation, whether you're studying for the Cambridge exams and the different ones there, or if you're wanting to do PT, you can do all of those courses here at Australian English schools.

Another point worth mentioning here, guys, is that the Australian government published a study a little while back, but it's still relevant, called Studying in Australia, which discussed the views of students, agents and parents from at least six different countries regarding studying in Australia in comparison to other popular destinations for international students. Quote, "Australia's student visa costs, tuition costs, living expenses and demonstrated minimal funds required to apply for a visa, were lower or equal to all other destinations."

"Australia also has a wealth of opportunities and experiences, so if you're interested in travel, if you're interested in sightseeing, in art galleries, in culture, in food, all of these things will be at your fingertips when you come and study in Australia." So we have a wide range of climates and habitats, everything from the hot, dry desert to the warm, humid forests of northern Queensland. We have the Great Barrier Reef if you like tropical destinations at the beach, we also have amazing picturesque beaches all along the coast of Australia. You can go surfing, you can go bushwalking, you can hit the forest, the mountains, you can go snowboarding, skiing. There is a lot when it comes to travel in Australia.

The last thing that I wanted to mention was the fact that Australians are a little bit sport crazy. So if you're into your sports, whether you like playing sports, being a member of a club training or you just want to go to a match or a game on the weekends and check it out as a spectator, Australia is going to be the location for you guys to check out.

So anyway, guys, that is it. Those are all of the reasons I think, and I think many others would agree. Australia is one badass destination. If you would like to study English or if you want to study at university, something that isn't English as well.

So I hope you agree guys, but I want a handball this back to you guys. What do you think? Is Australia a really good destination for studying English and have I forgotten any tips, any pros, any awesome aspects of studying Down Under? Let me know in a comment below guys.

And as always, don't forget to hit that subscribe button and the bell icon so that you can stay up to date with all of the latest videos on the Aussie English Channel. Anyway, guys, I wish you a ripper of a day and I'll chat to you soon. Catch ya!

All right guys, I think it's time to go out and see how this camera goes. Let's see if we can get a nice time lapse and finish this video off. See you in a sec. All right, let's do this, guys. Target acquired. All right. I'm done, freezing my butt off. It's cold out here. Time to head home. Get some food. I will see you in the next one. Catch you guys!