Transcript of AE 1235 - Expression: It's Now or Never

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 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. Let's go.

You know, you mob. How's it going, Pete? Here from Aussie English. This is the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. The Aussie English Podcast. So guys, I hope you've been having a killer week. I've been, I don't know, here and there doing a lot with the kids recently, hanging out with the wife. Playing a bit of guitar, taking care of the plants, playing with the cats. So yeah, sort of chugging along with just day to day life with a young family, I guess. But yeah. Hope you guys have been having a beautiful week. Let's just get into today's episode, all right? It's now or never! So we're getting into the expression it's now or never today.

But before we do that, before I forget, don't forget. If you want to get access to the transcripts for these episodes of the podcast, you can sign up to the premium podcast membership for less than a dollar a day at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast. You'll get access to the transcripts that these episodes have.

So I think there's over 1200 of them now, and the only episodes that don't come with transcripts are the Pete's 2cents episodes. Treat those as just listening comprehension exercise episodes. But all the other episodes do. All the interviews, all the expression episodes, everything like that. You'll get access to the premium podcast player so that you can listen and read at the same time. You'll have the PDFs to download, print out, and be able to study, obviously, and you'll also have bonus episodes of The Goss and other Member-Only episodes.

So today's expression: "It's now or never". "It's now or never". Wonder if you've heard this one before. We get into that though, let's do today's Q and A, question and answer. This one comes from Arminmpak, who asks "Any advice for phone convos with mates who have broad accents like tradies?" So do I have any advice for how to get better at understanding broad accents on the phone? Hmm, I think the phone, it's one of those things where it's not necessarily the phone, it's just that the phone tends to be harder to understand people because all you have is their voice, right? You can't see them. And there's a lot of communication that happens when you're chatting with someone that involves movement and other things, right? Their expressions on their face, how their hands are moving. You can also see their lips move, and that can help you with understanding what they're saying as well.

So when you don't have that, as in the case of being on the phone with someone, it can feel a lot harder than it should. So what would I suggest? Well, obviously listening comprehension, listening comprehension, listening comprehension. There's no way around it.

You need to consume as much content as possible that has those types of accents that you're currently finding difficult, right? So if you find broad Australian accents really tough, you know, the type of accents that people in regional areas might speak with a little more frequently than in cities people like tradies might have, then you need to be trying to find podcasts, TV shows, movies, audiobooks that use that accent that you're trying to get better at, right?

It's no use just sticking to content that you already find easy to understand, because that's not going to help you improve areas that you currently need to improve. So yeah, I would say try and find a nice TV show or movie. That's probably going to be the easiest thing to find that has people with broad accents, you know, things like crocodile Dundee, that's a classic TV show or TV show. It's a movie from Australia, from Down Under. It's got lots of other stuff, there's other stuff in there too, like history and culture and all those sorts of things. Aussie slang. It's also, you know, in our pop culture, you know, "That's not a knife. This is a knife!"

Start with a movie like that and then actually study it. Don't just watch it once through and think, 'Oh, I've nailed it.' Watch it all the way through, and then watch it again and maybe focus on scene by scene. Use subtitles, try and print out the subtitles. You know, you can get those subtitle files online. You can print them out. You can then practice the different vocab and everything. You can read whilst you're watching, so that you can work on your listening comprehension that way.

And then just give it time, you know. Really, it just takes time and a lot of exposure to a lot of different people with that kind of accent. And that's what's really going to help you level up your listening comprehension skills quickly. So I hope that helps. But yeah, be patient, persist and improvement will happen.

All right, guys, kick the bird, slap it, punch it, and let's get into today's joke. So today's joke, one of today's examples is about kissing someone. So I thought, you know, I'd try and find a joke about kissing. And this. This one's a bit of a pisser. It's a pretty funny, so I had to include it. I hope you like it. Okay. So, are you ready? Here we go.

Do you ever just wake up and kiss the person sleeping beside you and feel glad that you're alive? I just did, and apparently I'm not allowed on this airline anymore!

So I guess the joke there is right? That you're. The first line makes it sound like you're in bed with your wife, or your husband or your partner or whatever, right? And you wake up, you kiss them and you're like, 'Man, I love my life. My life's great. I'm so glad to be alive.'.

But then the second line kind of subverts that and puts the image in your head that you're actually on a plane and you've just kissed a stranger next to you. And now that you're not allowed on that airline anymore, right. Qantas has banned you because you keep kissing all the other passengers when you wake up.

So the joke: "Do you ever just wake up and kiss the person sleeping beside you and feel glad that you're alive? I just did, and apparently I'm not allowed on this airline anymore!" Ah, so there you go. There you go.

Okay, so let's define the words in the expression "It's now or never".

So "it". This is a singular third person pronoun with no specific gender. So it's used to refer to a thing usually previously mentioned or easily identified. You know, "What is it?" "What is it that's in front of me?" "What is it?" "What is it?"

"Is". This is the present conjugation of the verb 'to be' with singular third person pronouns. 'It', 'he', 'is' it- 'it', 'he' and 'she' is, 'it is', 'she is', 'he is'.

"Now". This is the present. Right, this moment. It is 'now'.

"Or". This is used to link alternatives. It's this 'or' that. "My favourite colour is either blue or red."

"Never." This means at no time in the past or future. Not ever. Never.

"It's now or never." Okay, so what would it mean if I say it's now or never? It's kind of obvious, right? Either we do it now, or we never do it. You know, this is the moment of truth. This is where we have to act, right? Something that must be done right this moment, right now, immediately. Because if it isn't done immediately, there will be no other chance to do it. It's now or never. We have to act right this moment.

So yeah, kind of a simple one. But let's get into three examples of how I would use this expression on a daily basis. Okay. So here we go.

Example number one. A classic cliche that you'll see in films is when people are running away from the bad guys. You know, an example might be the Indiana Jones film or maybe James Bond, where they're running away from someone, they are running through the jungle, they're getting chased by, you know, indigenous people from South America who are shooting arrows and throwing spears at them. All of a sudden they get to the edge of a cliff and there's a river, obviously, a huge, a huge waterfall going over the edge. And it's now or never, right? If they want to escape with their lives, they have to sort of risk it all.

They have to go for broke. They have to jump over the cliff and into the water below. "It's now or never, mate!" "Jump! It's now or never." "If we hang around, we're going to be toast. It's now or never."

Example number two. Maybe you're on a date with a girl or a boy. You know, whoever it is that you like, you've been dating him for a while. Things are moving slowly, but one day you go out and have an amazing date with this person. It's the end of the night. You've driven them home. You've walked them all the way up to their front door, and you realise now is your chance to kiss them. It's now or never. If I don't do it now, I could miss my chance, right? Maybe they'll think, oh, he's not interested or she's not interested and they'll just never follow things up ever again. And that'll be it. So it's now or never. I have to lean in and try and kiss them. It's now or never.

And if you've seen the first season of Round the Twist, a great Aussie TV show that I watched growing up, absolutely love this show. There's a scene in it where the main character, ironically also called Pete, has a crush on this girl. He's taken her up to the doorstep where she lives and she's like, see you later. And he goes in for the kiss and she shuts the door in his face. And not only that, his enemies from school all see it happen and make fun of him. So yeah, it's now or never.

Example number three. Imagine you're a guitar nut who's obsessed with vintage guitars. You've been chasing a certain model of Fender or Gibson from the 1950s or 60s. That's certain. I was trying to say quality, but I accidentally also tried to say colour. It's a certain colour and a certain quality, so there aren't many around. But one day you see the exact thing you're after is up for auction on eBay, so you realise it's now or never. Now is your chance. If you don't bid on this right now. If you don't win this in this auction, you may never get another chance. It's now or never. You need to act before it's too late. It's now or never.

So when do we use the expression "it's now or never"? We use this to talk about something that must be done straight away, immediately, right now. Because if it isn't done now, there may not be a chance to do it in the future. Okay, so it's now or never. You must act now or the chance may never come back.

So let's go through a little pronunciation exercise. As always guys, this is your chance to work on your Australian pronunciation, your Australian accent. Try and find somewhere away from other people where you're going to feel like you can talk out loud without any, you know, judgement or second guessing yourself. You can just speak freely and listen and repeat after me. Are you ready? Let's go.

It's. It's now. It's now or. It's now or never. It's now or never. It's now or never. It's now or never. It's now or never. I said it's now or never. You said it's now or never. He said it's now or never. She said it's now or never. We said it's now or never. They said it's now or never. It's said it's now or never.

Good work guys! So there's quite a few interesting things happening there, connected speech wise. So let's go over "It's now or never". /It's now/. So we link those together with the S at the end of the word. /It's/ /it's◡nau/, /it's◡nau/, /it's◡now/, /it's◡now/.

Then the W sound at the end of the word 'now' links to the next vowel in the word 'or' /na◡wor/ /na◡wor/. It's kind of a subtle W sound, a /wuh/ because our lips are widening /na◡wor/. Actually, they're sort of coming in, but we still use the /wuh/ sound /na◡wor/ /na◡wor/. So don't do it like /nau/ /wor/, but subtly. /Na◡wor/, /na◡wor/.

Then we don't say the R in the word 'or' because there's a consonant that comes after it at the start of the word 'never'. /It's na◡wo(r) never/. /It's na◡wo(r) never.

And you'll notice we also don't say the R at the end of the word 'never', because there's nothing after it: /nevuh/, /nevuh/. And we use an /uh/ sound /nevuh/. /It's na◡wo(r) nevuh/. /It's na◡wo(r) nevuh/.

Now lastly, what do you hear happening to the end of the word of 'said', right? 'Said' it ends with a D. So if I were to say the word 'said'. A little too emphatically right, /said-uh/. You're going to hear that D sound /sed/ /sed/ /sed/. But when we have a D that is sandwiched between two vowel sounds, so the vowel in the word 'said' /e/, and the vowel at the start of the word 'it', /i/, the D or T, if it were a T, turns into a T flap or a D flap. So you'll hear /I sed it/. /You sed it/. /He sed it/. /She sed it/.

So the D turns into a T flap sound to link those vowel sounds together a little, a little more effortlessly, right. We speak, and it's a little more fluid than if you were to try and say the hard D sound. 'I said, it's now or never', right? You kind of have to break it up and you sound a bit robotic if you do that. So instead we use that T flap. /I sed it's na◡wo(r) nevuh/. /You sed it's na◡wo(r) nevuh/. /He sed it's na◡wo(r) nevuh/. /She sed it's na◡wo(r) nevuh/. /We sed it's na◡wo(r) nevuh/.

It just takes practice. But the more you sort of nail these aspects of pronunciation, the more you're going to sound like an Australian. Remember guys, if you want to master your Australian pronunciation and get that Aussie accent to speak English with, check out my Australian pronunciation course at AussieEnglish.com.au/apc

In the third section with all the advanced lessons, this is where we go over these sorts of things, right? Linking sounds, consonant clusters, the D and the T turning into a D or T flap when speaking in sentences like this. So yeah, if you're interested in that sort of stuff, go check out the Australian pronunciation course AussieEnglish.com.au/apc

So now in the last section I'm going to play a clip for you. This is where you get to work on your listening comprehension skills. The clip comes from the Blinky Bill movie, so it's called Blinky Bill the Movie from 2015. This is an Aussie film. Obviously, Blinky Bill is a koala, so there's a few famous Aussie actors in this. You might hear their voices if you go and check the film out. Toni Collette is in it. And David Wenham. I actually like both of these actors, actresses. Well, I guess Toni is an actress and David is an actor, but I like them both. They're great. You'll probably recognise David if you've seen the original Lord of the rings films. He's in them.

The excerpt is "Blinky Bill, a koala, undertakes a mission and passes through the Australian outback to find his missing father, with the assistance of an unlikely group of friends." So yeah, go check out the film and I hope you enjoy it.

Remember the rules of the game. I'm going to play a clip for you two times, and your goal is to listen and then write down what you hear being said. It's a great way to work on your listening comprehension. Remember, you'll be able to check your answer if you download today's free worksheet, or if you have access to the premium podcast membership. If you've signed up for that at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast, you'll also obviously be able to see the answer in the transcript itself. So are you ready to go? Here's the first playthrough.

What do we have here? Entrée and main course? Leave her alone! Or what? Or he'll smash you! This is Blinky Bill, the meanest, toughest explorer in the whole outback.

Good job mate, good job. So did you get all of it? Time for the second playthrough.

What do we have here? Entrée and main course? Leave her alone! Or what? Or he'll smash you! This is Blinky Bill, the meanest, toughest explorer in the whole outback.

All right, so that's it for me today, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you have a great week and I'll chat to you next time. See you!