Transcript of AE 955 - 6 English Expressions You Need to Know

G'day, you mob and welcome to Aussie English. I am your host, Pete, and my objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken down under. So, whether you want to sound like a fair dinkum Aussie or you just want to understand what the flipping 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. Let's go.

G'day, you mob. Pete here, this is Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. Welcome. Welcome to this expression round up episode. This is where I am going to be teaching you six- six? Plus one. Six expressions that advanced English speakers, native English speakers use all the time down under in Australia.

Well, five of them they use all the time, the other one is just a very cool slang term that a lot of people know, especially Australians, and that I definitely recommend you try on, you give a go, you give a whirl when speaking English in Australia. Anyway, so I'm going to teach you these six expressions. I will give you some examples of how I would use these expressions in day-to-day English.

Remember that each one of these expressions has been on the podcast and has an advanced video lesson that goes with it. I will show them up above here. I'll link them, too, so that you can go and check out the full episodes if you want to dive deeper. Okay. Besides that, don't forget to stay until the end of this episode because I have a little gift for you that's going to help you level up your English with lightning speed.

And lastly, there's a worksheet below for you to cover, to review all of the expressions in today's episode, too. So, don't forget to go down into the description there or on the web page where this is published and hit download. Okay, so are you ready to go? Are you ready to rock? Are you ready to learn these expressions? The answer's yes. Let's go. Number one, "a hard nut to crack, a hard nut to crack".

So, this was in episode 904 of the Aussie English podcast. And if you listen to that episode, you will know that "a hard nut to crack" is an expression that means a person or a thing that is difficult to deal with. That's difficult to understand. That's difficult to influence.

So, for example, if you work for an IT company and you've been given the task of writing some code to create a certain algorithm, maybe you work for Facebook or YouTube and you're finding it really, really difficult to do, you know, writing this code is really, really hard.

It's a problem. It's an issue. It is a task that is "a hard nut to crack". It is hard to deal with. It's hard to resolve. It's "a hard not to crack". Example number two might be that you're dating someone, you know, you guys have been on a few dates. Maybe you haven't pashed yet, right? You haven't had a kiss yet. You haven't had a snog with the person you're on a date with.

So, you're still trying to work out, do they like me? Do they not like me? Where do we stand? You know, and if this person's not giving you any signals and they're hard to understand, they may be "a hard nut to crack". Do they like me? Don't they like me? They want to go on another date, but I can't tell. They're not giving me any signals. They are "a hard nut to crack". All right. Number two, "chasing rainbows".

This was episode 919 of the Aussie English podcast. Remember "to chase rainbows, if you chase rainbows, if you are chasing rainbows", this means that you are wasting your time pursuing something impossible. Right. Something that is almost certainly never going to happen. You are "chasing rainbows". The idea here being that if you actually try to chase a rainbow, you never get to the end of the rainbow, right?

You never find that leprechaun with the pot of gold. It's impossible because the rainbow is always the same distance from your eyes, right. The physics of it mean that you can never actually get to a rainbow. Annoying, right? So, example number one, imagine that you are an Aussie guy or girl who's flown over to America, and you want to become an actor, right. You want to make it big in Hollywood.

So, you start submitting all of these- I don't know. What do they submit? Audition tapes, videos of you acting to different films, to different TV shows, hoping that you'll get selected. But your friends tell you, you know, it's always a long shot, so you're probably "chasing rainbows". You know, you're probably better off just getting a normal job.

You'll have more chance of making a decent income, of "earning a crust", there's a good expression for you, to make an income. If you do that, as opposed to trying to become the next Chris Hemsworth, you're probably "chasing rainbows". And remember from that episode, the Aussie version of this expression "to be dreamin', right? He's dreamin'. Oh, mate, tell him he's dreamin'" from the movie The Castle.

Go check out the episode to learn more about that reference. Number three, "a rising tide lifts all boats, a rising tide lifts all boats". This was used in episode 929 of the Aussie English podcast. So, go check out that episode if you want to get deeper into this expression.

Typically, it's used to refer to a well performing economy, helping everyone, both rich and poor, equally. Right. The idea that everyone there is a boat on the ocean and if the tide in the ocean is rising, all boats rise. You know, can't just be the rich boats or the poor boats may be sinking down. They all rise equally. So, we can also use this to mean an action that helps everyone involved, though, right.

The idea being that if you do something that helps everyone, it's like "a rising tide lifting all boats". So, let's go through some examples. Example number one, imagine that you're a politician and you're unlike most politicians, not a dodgy guy. You're a good guy as opposed to a bad guy.

And you're trying to do the right thing, you're trying to make a big difference for, you know, Aussie battlers, people doing it tough and who have low income. So, you want to implement some sort of tax law or tax reform so that everyone will do better. You're hoping that by doing this, it's like "a rising tide lifting all boats", right? So, everyone's going to benefit. The second example may be that you are a billionaire, right.

One of the very few people in the world who has 1,000 million dollars or more in assets and wealth. But instead of being like most billionaires, you want to give away a lot of your money, right. You're more of a philanthropic billionaire, maybe like Bill Gates or apparently like Mark Zuckerberg. He says he's going to give away 99% of his wealth.

So, you're hoping to do this to charities, say, fighting disease in places like, you know, poor countries in Asia or in Africa or in South America because you want to help the poor and you're hoping by doing so "a rising tide lifts all boats". If you develop vaccines for certain diseases or treatments for things like malaria, you're hoping it helps everyone. "A rising tide lifts all boats".

All right. Expression number four, and this was from episode 935. This is the very, very Aussie expression. I think if you were to use this in Great Britain, in America, you would confuse the crap out of people. You would confuse people quite a lot. However, I think you could probably use this in New Zealand, and it might make sense. Anyway, let me explain it. "To rattle your dags, to rattle your dags".

Right, if you rattle something, it'd be like having keys and I've got no keys on me. But- Oh, I've got an idea. Here we go. Here's a prop when you need it, that's to rattle, right. It's to make all those noises when you got a bunch of things, that's to rattle something. A dag in Australia is the sort of dreadlock that you would see on the backside of a sheep that is caked together full of poo.

And, you know, if they rattle together, it's because the sheep is running usually. Right. All the dags on the sheep's bum are rattling together and making some noise. So, it's a very Australian expression to mean get a move on, hurry up, let's go. "Rattle your dags, mate. Rattle your dags". Come on. Come on. So, example number one, imagine you are running late to a party that you and your wife are going to.

She might come out of the bedroom. She's ready, you know, she's gotten all dolled up. She's put some lipstick on. She's got her dress on. And you've just gotten out of the bath. And she might be like looking at her watch going, come on, hurry up, mate. "Rattle your dags". Get a move on. Hurry up. We need to go. "Rattle your dags". Another one could be imagine you're a marathon runner and you are in a race and you're coming second.

So, you are right at the front, almost number one and you can see the finish line within sight. You are so close as you get there, your coach might yell out to you, Pete, rattle your dags, you're almost there. You can win. "Rattle your dags". You know, hurry up, go faster, get a move on. "To rattle your dags".

And I think if you were to use this in Australia with Australians in a kind of, you know, friendly, cute kind of way, they will laugh their heads off. If they hear you say, you know, "rattle your dags". Oh, we better "rattle our dags". We got to get a move on. Better "rattle your dags". Number five, "to make your skin crawl, to make your skin crawl". So, this was episode 941 on the Aussie English podcast. It came out recently.

If you make someone's skin crawl or if something makes your skin crawl, it's that you make someone feel disgusted or afraid, or that something makes you feel disgusted or afraid. Right. Scared. So, example one, my wife Kel has a phobia of spiders. They really freak her out. She hates spiders. Small spiders, especially big spiders, anything with eight legs that's furry she just finds absolutely disgusting and it freaks her out.

So, any time she sees one, "it makes her skin crawl". She's like, oh, it's like I can feel it on me, the legs on me running around. I hate them. "They make my skin crawl". Another one might be, another example might be that you hate scary movies because as the name suggests, they're scary. They make you afraid. Sometimes they're really gory, really disgusting. There's a lot of blood and guts and horror in the film.

So, if you go to a film and you see one of these scenes where there's lots of stuff going on that you find incredibly disgusting or very scary, you might say, oh, I hate this film. "It's making my skin crawl". It's just gross. It's freaking me out. The last one, guys, number six is to be a "scaredy cat, a scaredy cat". Now, let's make this a two for one.

You could also use "a fraidy cat", right, like a cat that is afraid, a cat that is scared, "a scaredy cat, a fraidy cat". This was episode 952 of the Aussie English podcast that was released recently. If you are "a fraidy cat or a scaredy cat", it is that you are afraid. You're scared. But it's kind of young child speak.

It's what you would use as a kid, you know, when I was in the playground, if there was a whole bunch of my mates and we were, you know, I don't know, playing around. Let's try doing this thing. Do a backflip, Pete. I don't want to do a backflip, mate. I'll get hurt. What are you, "a scaredy cat"? Are you afraid? All right, I'll do one. Oh, my back. All right.

Example number two, at the moment, my son hates slides. Right. So, we go to playgrounds, and he really doesn't like slides because they kind of freak him out. You know, the height kind of scares him. He feels like he's losing control when he goes down them, that it's too fast. So, he's a bit of "a scaredy cat". He's a bit of "a fraidy cat" when it comes to using slides at the playground. But he'll get better, he'll get better.

Anyway, guys, that is it. Those are the expressions. "A hard nut to crack, to chase rainbows. A rising tide lifts all boats, rattle your dags, to make your skin crawl and a scaredy cat." Okay, so try and use one of these right now. Right. Pause the episode or the video and try and go down into the comments below and use one of these expressions that you found, you know, the most interesting.

Maybe if you knew some already use one that you didn't know beforehand. This is how you're going to get the English to enter your active vocabulary. Right. Something that you've just learnt now, it's in your passive vocab. You've seen it before. You might understand it passively. If you want to get it into your active vocab so that you can use it, you have to use it. Right. There's no- There's no other way around it.

You have to kind of use it to be able to use it. I don't know if that's an adage or a slogan yet, but maybe I'll make that one. Anyway, besides that, I've got a little gift for you. So, I have a podcast, as I mentioned, called the Aussie English Podcast. And it comes with full transcripts, full video lessons for these expression episodes.

Every single expression episode that I've mentioned today comes as a full 20-minute episode where you will learn how to use the expression, but you'll learn a lot of other advanced English in there. You'll get access to pronunciation lessons. There's a lot of content when you join the Aussie English podcast.

So, if you want to get access to this, go down below and you will be able to sign up to the premium podcast membership in the next 24 hours and get your first month free. Okay, so I don't usually give out a month's free access to this podcast to anyone, but for the next 24 hours after this video has been released, you can go down there, you can sign up and you can check out over 950 episodes in the podcast membership for free for 30 days.

Okay, so I hope that helps you level up your English. I hope you enjoy it. If you've got any questions, again, send me a comment below or send me an email. Besides that, I'm Pete, this is Aussie English. Thank you for joining me and I'll see you next time. Bye.