Transcript of AE 1298 - Learn English with a Short Story: Day at the Beach

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.

Hey guys. Pete here. Hope you're going well. Hope you are having an awesome weekend. We have something new and special today. Something a little different. So as you're no doubt aware, as you're listening to this on the podcast, for the last couple of months, you guys have been consuming, hopefully listening to a whole bunch of different Goss episodes with me and my dad having a chinwag, having a chat about different news articles, stories, things like that.

And that's been a lot of fun. Partly this was because I was spending a lot of time putting together my most recent Aussie English course, the English Expressions 30 Day Challenge, and we'll talk a little bit about that later on in this episode. You'll hear about that. Um, but also, I kind of wanted a break. I had sort of been burnt out a little bit with the structure of the expression episodes that we've been doing for years now on this podcast, and I wanted a bit of time to kind of reassess and think, you know, how can I mix things up and try and change them up, make them more interesting and just do something, uh, a little more different? So yeah, we've we've created what you will hear shortly.

And it's a video on YouTube. So if you want to check it out, go to YouTube. It's obviously a lot better if you can listen, read and watch at the same time. So just do a search for 'Day at the Beach Aussie English' on YouTube. Find my channel. It'll be one of the most recent videos if you're listening to this podcast as it first comes out. But yeah, 'Day at the Beach' is the name of it.

And effectively it's a short story with Australian slang and expressions in there, and we then break down those different expressions and slang terms after you get to hear and sort of watch this story, because it's also visual with images, and you can read and listen at the same time. Um, and then I play it for you again.

So hopefully this is a really effective way of learning about Australian culture, about the English we use down under the way that we talk to one another and the slang and expressions that we use as well. Um, before we get into it though, don't forget to give me some feedback. So after you listen to this or after you watch it on the Aussie English YouTube channel, please give me some feedback and let me know what you reckon.

What do you think of it? Do you like it? Is it too long? Is it too short? Is the structure good? Was it effective for helping you learn slang and expressions? If you have any suggestions? As always, please. I'm an open book. You can send me these suggestions. The whole point of this podcast is to help you guys level up your English as quickly and effectively as possible.

And I guess lastly, there's a worksheet for today that you can download. So I will include that in the podcast description. You'll be able to find it on the website as well on my Aussie English website. And it'll also obviously be on the YouTube video too. So hopefully you got no trouble finding that. It's probably easier if you download that first, then listen or watch the video because you'll be able to read the text, um, in the PDF as well. But no dramas if you can't. Anyway, I've been rabbiting on a bit. Um, let's just get into today's episode.

G'day, mate. Have you ever wondered how Australians talk about going to the beach in English? By the end of this episode, you are going to know a whole bunch of slang and expressions that Aussies use every day when talking about the beach. So the plan is that we're going to dive into a fun little short story about going to the beach.

Three mates that go to the beach on a scorcher of a day. I'm going to play this story for you to begin with. I'm then going to break down the vocab, the interesting vocab that's used in the story, including slang and idioms. And then at the end, I'm going to play the story for you one more time so you can check your comprehension.

Now, before we get started, I recommend grabbing a drink, grabbing something to nibble on, and grabbing a notepad so that you can obviously take notes. There's a free worksheet today. You'll be able to see that on screen. Here it is linked in the description below.

You can get this now. Pause the video, print it out and take notes on this worksheet if you want. It'll have the transcript of the video. It'll have the glossary for the vocab. And it'll also have a bonus 20 question quiz that you can do in your own time after the lesson as well. All right, so hopefully you got your drink and you got some snacks. Let's get into the story the first time.

It was a scorching day Saturday morning, and Jamie and his friends, Lily and Mark were itching to get outside. It's too nice to stay home. Let's hit the beach, Jamie called to his friends. They packed their bathers, towels, and loaded the esky with food and drinks before driving off to the beach.

By noon, they arrived at the coast. The sun was blazing and the beach was chockers with people, but they managed to find a spot near the water and parked the car on the sand. Blimey, it's packed, Jamie said, looking around. Everyone's out to catch some rays today. Lily, already wearing her sunnies, grinned as she took them off. You can catch rays later, she said. Let's go for a dip first. It's way too hot to just sit here.

As they strip down to their bathers, Jamie suddenly realised he'd forgotten his. Damn it! I've only got my jocks. Mark chuckled. Well, they'll have to do. Just make sure you don't lose them in the surf or you're on your own. Lily laughed as she ran down to the water. If that happens, at least it'll scare the sharks away, Jamie!

The water was perfect, but the surf wasn't doing much. Looks like the water's flat as a tack, Jamie commented, watching a few surfers floating around aimlessly. Not much action today. Mark, who had brought his surfboard, sighed in disappointment. Oh, I was hoping to catch some waves, but it's not happening. Look at all the shark biscuits out there with nothing to do. He decided to leave the surfboard on the sand and join them for a swim instead.

After cooling off in the water, they returned to their towels and cracked open the esky to grab some cold drinks. Jamie stretched out and sighed contentedly. Oh, I could do this all day. Guess I'm turning into a beach bum. Mark laughed. Mate, you already are. He lay back and added, still, I'm stoked we made it out here. Nothing beats a sunny day at the beach.

Just then, a gust of wind blew through and Lily, who had been trying to balance on the edge of a small wave, took a tumble right into the water. She quickly popped up, laughing. Well, that wasn't graceful. But no worries, she said, flicking the water from her hair. After a while, they decided to head back to the car, but when they reached it, they realised they were stuck. We're bogged, Jamie groaned, shaking his head. Knew I shouldn't have parked on the sand!

With some help from a friendly passer-by, they finally managed to get the car free as they packed up their gear and prepared to leave. Jamie took one last look at the ocean and smiled. You know what? He said, grinning despite getting bogged and missing the waves. That was a great day. Fair dinkum. I wouldn't trade it for anything. His friends nodded in agreement. Same time next weekend? Mark asked. Absolutely, Lily replied. And Jamie, don't forget your budgie smugglers next time. They all laughed as they drove off, ready to plan their next beach adventure.

Okay, so I hope you enjoyed the story. I now have the PDF up on screen in front of me and we'll go through it line by line.

And we'll also talk about the vocab that is used in the story as we reach it. Okay, "it was a scorching day Saturday morning, and Jamie and his friends Lily and Mark were itching to get outside."

So, it was a 'scorching day'. In Australia, we often say 'scorching' as an adjective to describe a very hot day. "Oh man, today was scorching". We can also use this as a noun. A scorcher. A scorcher of a day. "How was yesterday? It was pretty hot, right? It was a scorcher." A scorcher, so we use that quite a lot.

The other interesting vocab in the first sentence here is 'itching to do something', right. They said Lily and Mark were 'itching to get outside'. If you are 'itching to do something', it means you really want to do that thing. It's like 'gagging to do something', you're 'keen to do something', you are 'itching to do that thing'. "I'm itching to see my friends." "I'm itching to go to the beach." Okay. 'Itching to do something'.

All right. The next sentence. "It's too nice to stay home. Let's hit the beach, Jamie called to his friends." So this is the first piece of vocab that I've got here. This is an expression, 'to hit the beach'. Aussies use this all the time, and I'm sure you can work out what it means. It means to go to the beach.

I guess the idea is like your buddies are going to get to the beach, and go on to the beach. You're like metaphorically hitting the beach. Not literally. I guess you could trip over, and your body could hit the beach. But metaphorically, here or figuratively, we're saying 'hit the beach' as in to go to the beach. So, "I love hitting the beach with my friends in the summer." "My kids and I, we might hit the beach this weekend."

Let's keep going. So, "they pack their bathers towels and loaded the esky with food and drinks before driving off to the beach." "They packed their bathers." 'Bathers' is one of the several slang terms we use in Australia for swimwear.

So I think this is typically Victoria, South Australia. It might be Perth, Western Australia as well, and Tasmania. It's that southern part of Australia we use 'bathers'.

I then think that people from New South Wales will say things like 'togs' and maybe 'cozzie' as well. I think Queensland too. It's up, up north in New South Wales and Queensland. They'll use 'togs' and 'cozzie' a little more frequently than 'bathers'. I think 'bathers' is definitely a very, um, south part of Australia, uh, slang term.

And then we have the word 'esky' here. 'Esky'. An 'esky', that is a cooler, right. Where you put food to keep it cool. It's like an insulated box where you can put ice, and then you can put your drinks in there. You can put your food in there, and you usually take it to a party. You might take it to the beach. Funnily enough, you can take it to many different places.

Next sentence. "By noon they arrived at the coast. The sun was blazing and the beach was chockers with people, but they managed to find a spot near the water and parked the car on the sand." So most of this is going to be pretty easy, I think. For you guys. "The sun was blazing." That would, it's sort of like 'scorching'. I guess the idea is it's very bright, right? "The sun was blazing." It was very bright, hot sun.

"And the beach was chockers." 'Chockers' here is short for 'chock a block'. And these are both slang terms that just mean very full. And you can use this about items you know, your 'esky' might be 'chock a block', it might be 'chockers full' of food and drinks.

But you could also use it when talking about people. "The beach is absolutely chockers", and the rest of the, I guess, insinuation there, is that it's 'chockers' with people. "It's chockers." It's 'chock a block full' of other human beings, right.

So it's interesting how we shorten it there. Well, actually, we didn't shorten it here, but you could just say "the beach is chockers". Here, we did say "the beach was chockers with people." So that's a really cool phrase that you will hear all the time in Australian English.

"Blimey, it's packed, Jamie said, looking around. Everyone's out to catch some rays today." So there's some interesting vocab here. Firstly, 'blimey', this is an interesting word. We use this sort of like to show shock. Surprise, that you're impressed by something.

'Blimey', it's similar to 'crikey'. Or if you wanted to get religious, you could say, 'Jesus', you know. Well, you don't have to be religious to say 'Jesus', but we often use that. 'Bloody hell'. You could use that too. And you could use a number of other rude words to show that you're shocked or surprised. 'Blimey' is not rude. We don't really see that as rude. It probably was once upon a time. Nowadays you can say it, and it's kind of like a it's informal, but it's not going to turn heads like, Whoa, what did he say? You know. Oh my God, he said blimey. Woof.

"It's packed." 'Packed' is similar to 'chockers', right. So these things are echoing one another. 'Chockers'. The narrator was using this to say that the beach was full of people. And then Jamie here is saying, "Blimey, it's packed." 'Packed'. "It's packed full of people", "It's packed with people."

And you could also say "It's packed to the rafters." This is another expression that I guess means there are a lot of people in a single house. I think that would be the idea. It's a TV show as well. That was on TV, I think probably over a decade ago. Um, the idea being there were lots of people living in a single house, 'packed to the rafters'. But yes, 'packed', 'chockers', very full.

Uh, "Jamie said, looking around. Everyone's out to catch some rays today." So if you 'catch some rays'. These are 'rays' from the sun, right? The sun is shining 'rays' down on the earth. That is the light and the UV, which I guess is a form of light. And you are catching it with your body, right? So if you're 'catching rays', you're sunbathing, your sunbaking. You're out there trying to get a tan, or you could use this just meaning you're outside wanting to enjoy the sun, right? 'Catching some rays'. So this is another good expression. I don't think this is unique to Australia. You can probably use this all over the world. You know, "You can catch some rays" in the UK. You can do it in America and people would get the idea.

"Lily, already wearing her sunnies, grinned as she took them off. You can catch rays later, she said. Let's go for a dip first. It's way too hot to just sit here." So, 'sunnies'. The first phrase here. "Lily already wearing her sunnies." So she's obviously pulled out her 'sunglasses'. And she's put her 'sunnies', as we call them in Australia. Her 'sunglasses' on, right? She's wearing her 'sunnies'.

"Grinned as she took them off." I guess she took them off as soon as she put them on. "You can catch some rays later." There we have, 'catch some rays later'. You can sit on the beach, you can suntan. You can sunbathe. You can do that later on.

"Let's go for a dip first." So 'to go for a dip'. A 'dip' here means a 'swim'. And if you 'go for a dip', which is a common expression we use in Australia, this is to 'go for a swim'. You can 'go for a dip' at the beach. You can 'go for a dip' at the pool. If you go to a farm that has a huge dam, you might 'go for a dip' in the dam. You could go to a river and 'go for a dip'. So it is 'to go for a swim'.

Let's continue on. "As they strip down to their bathers, Jamie suddenly realised he'd forgotten his. Damn it, I've only got my jocks." So firstly, I'll probably go through the phrasal verb 'strip down to something'. If you're wearing clothes and you 'strip down to something', the idea is that you've taken off a certain amount of that clothing and that you probably still have your underwear on.

I don't know if you would say you 'strip down to nudity' being naked, you would say you just 'strip down' if you got completely naked. Right? So if you 'strip down to something', you can 'strip down to your underwear', you could 'strip down to your socks', you could 'strip down to your bathers'.

Um, it's usually that you've taken off most of your clothes, and you only have 1 or 2 items left on your body. 'To strip down to something'. And I guess that's the reason we're using 'down', right? We're reducing the amount of clothing we're wearing.

"Damn it." Another good little expression here to show frustration or anger. Sort of like, 'blimey', I guess, but it's more it's more frustration and anger. You wouldn't see an amazing sunset and say, 'damn it', you know? I mean, I guess you could, but it would be like, Why? Why is the sunset making you angry, man? It's a beautiful thing.

Whereas here, he's realised he's only got his underwear. He's only got his jocks. And so he said in frustration and anger, "Damn it!", right. "Damn it!"

And yes. 'Jocks'. 'Jocks' means 'underwear', right? Your 'jocks', your 'underwear'. And we can also call these 'undies' in Australian English. 'Undies'.

"Mark chuckled. Well, they'll have to do. Just make sure you don't lose them in the surf or you're on your own." So there wasn't any vocab I highlighted in this phrase, but there is some interesting stuff that we can talk about. "They'll have to do." So if something 'has to do' or 'you have to make do with something'. The idea here is that it will need to suffice.

That's going to have to be enough. That'll have to do. 'Look, mate, you're coming for a swim. I don't care if you've got your jocks or you've got nothing. You're coming for a swim, mate. Whatever you've got will have to do. You'll have to make do. It'll have to suffice. It'll have to be enough, okay?'.

"Just make sure you don't lose them in the surf." So the idea here would be 'in the surf', 'in the waves', 'in the surf'. And "losing your jocks", like you were swimming around and they'd come off. When you catch a wave or something, you lose them 'in the surf'.

"Or you're on your own." And this is one of those phrases that when you say it, it sounds really funny. /You're on your own/, /you-ron-yur-own/, /you-ron-yur-own/, /you're/ /on/ /your/ own/. I guess it rhymes, right? It's got the /yo-ruh/, /yo-ruh/.

So, "you're on your own". This would be like, 'We're going to abandon you'. 'You are by yourself. We're not helping'. You know, "If you lose your jocks. It's not my problem, buddy. You are by yourself." "You're going to be in the beach or in the surf naked. We're going to be on the beach, and you can deal with the repercussions. I don't want to deal with that", right. I'm not taking off my bathers to give to you. Then I'll be naked. So. Yes. You're on your own.

'You are all by yourself. I'm not helping.' That's a good phrase to learn. "You're on your own".

"Lily laughed as she ran down to the water." We often use 'down' and 'up' when talking about the beach. So you 'run up' the beach. The idea here being that it's away from the water. Although I guess you could use this to mean away from someone as you're running along a beach. Especially if it was like going north-south. You could probably use up and down in that way too. Like, "He ran up the beach." It would be like, yeah, he 'ran along the beach', but up away from me. Or you 'ran down the beach' to someone.

But here the idea is 'down the beach' would be 'towards the water', 'up the beach' would be 'away from the water', towards the the sand. So it's an interesting thing to think about when you break it down.

"Lily laughed as she ran down to the water. If that happens, at least it'll scare the sharks away, Jamie!" So, 'to scare something away', to cause something, to be afraid to go away from you. Right. And she's making the joke that obviously, if Jamie's naked, it's going to freak the sharks out.

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At the end of this, you will have a short quiz that you can do to test your listening comprehension too. And you only need to study about 10 to 15 minutes a day. So if you want to check this out and you want to get 50% off, check out the link in the description or go to AussieEnglish.com.au/expressions and use the coupon code 50% off, okay. So once again go to AussieEnglish.com.au/expressions and use the coupon code 50% off to save. You guessed it. 50% off. Anyway, back to the lesson.

"The water was perfect, but the surf wasn't doing much. Looks like the water's flat as a tack, Jamie commented, watching a few surfers floating around aimlessly. Not much action today." So, 'flat as a tack'. We can use this to mean 'very flat', obviously, in terms of the water and the waves and the surf at the beach today.

So if it was, if you had really large surf, if you had huge waves, I don't know what would be the opposite of 'flat' here. You wouldn't really, I don't know if you would really use another, another phrase in the case of the ocean, you know, saying it's very pointy today. It's not flat. It's very, I guess you could use 'rough', but 'rough' would describe kind of waves everywhere. Not very clean waves at the beach, if you understand what I mean.

So, 'flat as a tack' here, we could use this to mean other things. Um, which I'll probably won't cover in this episode because it'll get banned from from YouTube. No, it probably won't, but it's probably inappropriate. But you can use this. Yeah. In in other senses as well to mean just very, very flat. I don't know what the deal is with 'tack' being used here. There's probably a reason I probably should have looked this up ahead of time. Um, but 'flat as a tack'.

I think it's mainly used because it rhymes. 'Tacks' don't tend to be flat. Maybe it's talking about the top of a tack, which is like a nail, kind of like a sharp nail with a flat top that you can push into something or you can hammer into something. It's probably talking about the top, as opposed to the sharp, um, point on it.

"Jamie commented, watching a few surfers floating around aimlessly." So this would be like they're floating in the water and they don't have a purpose. There's no waves to come, so it's 'aimless'. There's no 'aim' for them, right? They're doing that aimlessly.

"Not much action today." 'Action' here would mean like, a lot of things going on. There's not much surf, in this case. There's not much 'action'. You could go to the city hoping that a lot of stuff is going on, and if you went out, you know, you got off the tram or a train and you saw that it was dead, you might be like, 'Well, there's not much action today either', so there's not much going on, right? There's not much happening.

"Mark, who had brought his surfboard, sighed in disappointment. I was hoping to catch some waves, but it's not happening." So, we'll break down the first bit there. So Mark, he brought his surfboard along to the beach. He sighed in disappointment, like, 'Oh, this is you know, this sucks. This is lame. There's no waves.'.

"I was hoping to catch some waves." Another really cool expression we use to mean use a surfboard to go body surfing, to use a bodyboard, whatever it is to interact with surf waves, 'catch them', as in get on them and ride those waves, right? So, 'catch some waves', to surf some waves.

"But it's not happening. Look at all the shark biscuits out there with nothing to do. He decided to leave the surfboard on the sand and join them for a swim instead." So, 'shark biscuits', I wanted to include here. This is an interesting Aussie slang term that can be used to mean a beginner who is surfing, and I think it's probably fine to use it for surfers, people bodyboarding, body surfing. People interacting with surf, with waves, right there.

'Shark biscuits'. But I've also heard it used about bodyboards or probably surfboards too. The idea being like, it's sort of like a biscuit, right? That a shark could bite onto. But in the case of people, and going out and surfing, I guess the broader idea is that sharks could just come along and be like, Yum! You know, take a bite of that person, that surfboard, and that's the biscuit, the 'shark biscuit'. So it's just a bit of colourful Australian slang that you can use Down Under when talking about people surfing in the waves.

"After cooling off in the water, they returned to their towels and cracked open the esky to grab some cold drinks." So, they 'cooled off' in the water. We've used another phrasal verb here, as opposed to 'warm up'. Those are the sort of two opposites, or 'heat up'. So 'cool down', 'warm up', 'heat up', 'down' and 'up'. You'll notice those being used there.

"They returned to their towels and cracked open the esky to grab some cold drinks." 'Crack'. We can use this as sort of like informal Australian slang to mean 'to open something', 'to crack something open'. It's similar to things like 'to grab something', 'to chuck something', 'to crack something open.' We use that quite a lot. So learn those types of phrases.

It's it's informal, but it sounds a lot more natural, as opposed to saying something like, They opened up the esky, you know, you could do that, but 'crack something open'. It's pretty good. You can use it for drinks too. You might grab a beer and 'crack it open'. Um, what else could you 'crack open'? There's a lot of things you could 'crack open'. I think you know a container. Yeah, well, I guess an esky is a container.

So, "Jamie stretched out and sighed. Ah! Contentedly." Contented. He sighed 'contentedly'. Don't forget that adverb. "Ah!" You know, he's feeling good. He's sighing, but he's feeling good. Sort of like relaxation.

"I could do this all day. Guess I'm turning into a beach bum." So, a 'beach bum' here, 'bum' can be used many different ways. Obviously you've got your bum on your body. You know, I'm sitting on my bum at the moment, but a 'beach bum' would usually be someone who just hangs around the beach, all the time, right? A 'beach bum', we use that a lot.

"Mark laughed. Mate, you already are, you know you're already a beach bum. He lay back," again, probably sighing. Oh, "and added, still, I'm stoked we made it here. Nothing beats a sunny day at the beach." So there's a few things here. "Still, I'm stoked." I'm excited. I'm really happy. I'm chuffed. You know, these are slang terms. I think they're used by Americans as well, but Australians definitely use things like 'stoked', probably because we learn it from them, assuming it's not ours. And 'chuff' to mean very happy, you know? Um, excited. I'm 'stoked'. I'm 'chuffed'.

"I'm stoked we made it here." If you 'make it' somewhere, it's that you successfully got to that place. You successfully arrived. So someone might make it to your party. 'Oh, we made it on time. I thought we were going to be late, but we made it to the party and we made it on time'. So it's sort of a synonym for 'arrive somewhere'.

"Just then, a gust of wind blew through and Lily, who had been trying to balance on the edge of a small wave, took a tumble right into the water." So, 'to take a tumble'. Another good expression here, 'to take a tumble'. It sounds weird, right? It's sort of like what? You just took it and then what? You just ran off with it. No. 'To take a tumble' is to fall over. The idea being you 'tumble over', right? You fall. And I guess you've taken your yourself, and thrown yourself into a tumble. But yes, I don't know why we use 'take' here, as opposed to like 'go on a tumble'. 'Do a tumble'. It's just, it's just the expression, 'to take a tumble'. 'Oh, man. He took a tumble.' 'Fell down the stairs and took a tumble.' So it's kind of like 'fall down', but sort of rolling and probably worse than just 'fall over' or 'trip over', right. 'To take a tumble'.

You could also use 'to wipe out', if especially when talking about catching waves. So in the case here, Lily was surfing on a small wave. When you fall off a surfboard, or you effectively crash while surfing a wave, that is 'to wipe out', right? 'To wipe out'.

"She quickly popped up laughing." So, to 'pop up' would be like to quickly come up, right? So she could 'pop out'. She could 'pop up out of the water'. "She quickly popped up laughing."

Hah! "Well, that wasn't graceful! But no worries, she said, flicking the water from her hair." Yeah, I can't really do that on camera. It's a, it's a very quick 'flick' if I have water in my hair. My hair doesn't hold much water, to be honest.

Um, so, 'no worries'. We can use this in Australian English to mean, ah, it's not a problem, right? Ah. Don't stress. Ah, well, you know, no worries, 'no dramas'. You can use both of those. 'No worries', 'no dramas', you know. So she's saying, Ah, it's not a big deal, you know.

Okay. "After a while, they decided to head back to the car." So, 'to head somewhere', this is to go somewhere to go in a certain direction, 'to head back to the car'. They came from the car. Now they're 'heading back to the car'.

But when they reached it- so the idea here being they arrived at the car, they 'reached the car', they arrived at it, they realised they were stuck.

"We're bogged!, Jamie groaned, shaking his head. I knew I shouldn't have parked on the sand." 'Bogged'. If you get 'bogged', this is for your wheels to effectively dig a hole in sand, mud, dirt, and the car can't move, right? Or the vehicle can't move. It can be a truck, can be whatever you want. If it's got wheels- typically, it's not going to be something like a bike or a scooter, because you can probably just pull that out of the mud.

I guess, you know, if it did get stuck, you could say it's 'bogged'. Um, but usually it's going to be some kind of motorised vehicle, like a car. So, a four wheel drive, might be driving up a four wheel drive track. It's muddy, it's wet, it's raining, and all of a sudden it gets 'bogged', it gets stuck, and it has to be helped out. Maybe you've got to push it. You've got to put sticks under the tires and lever it up. Maybe you've got to use a winch or a strap on someone else's car to get you out of your situation, being 'bogged'.

And then something interesting to mention here. "Knew I shouldn't have parked on the sand." What's happened there at the start of this phrase? We've got some- I think it's elision. Elision or ellipsis. It's one of those two where the pronoun is missing. "Knew I shouldn't have parked on the sand."

Now, when learning English, you're probably taught quite often that you need to always be using pronouns. You can't- like, Spanish and Portuguese. Just drop the pronoun and use the verb, because conjugation allows you to know which pronoun should have been in front of that verb.

That was something that was a pain in the ass to get my head around when I was learning French. Not French, but um, Portuguese, Portuguese and Spanish. But funnily enough, in spoken English we do this all the time when it's obvious. Especially when you're speaking to someone, right? So yeah.

Spoken English. When you are having a conversation with someone, quite often you can just drop these pronouns. Whether it's 'you'- you know, you could just say 'Going to go to the shops later' if you were talking to someone, as opposed to saying, 'Are you going to go to the shops later?' Because it's obvious, you know.

And in this case, "Knew I shouldn't have parked on the sand." It's obvious he's talking about himself. You know, he's not saying 'You knew I shouldn't have parked on the sand', or 'He knew' or 'They knew'. It's obvious that he's talking about himself. So we do drop pronouns and auxiliary verbs. You know, like in that case of 'Are you going to the shops?' 'Going to the shops?' So it happens quite a lot.

"With some help from a friendly passer-by, they finally managed to get the car free." Let's do that first. So 'a friendly passer-by'. A 'passer by' is someone who is passing by. So we've turned, I guess, a phrasal verb, 'to pass by'. We've turned that into a noun, 'a passer by'. I wonder why we didn't call it a 'pass buyer', right? Or a 'passer buyer'? It's interesting how they end up deciding to turn phrasal verbs into nouns. A passer by! So, 'a passer by'. A friendly passer by is someone passing by who is 'friendly'. Obviously.

Then, "They finally manage to get the car free." So they got the car free of its trap, right? Of the thing that had it caught, it was 'freed'. They got it free.

"As they packed their gear and prepared to leave, Jamie took one last look at the ocean and smiled." So, you take a look. Don't forget, 'you take a look'. You can also 'have a look'. You can use both. You 'had a look' at the beach. He 'took a look' at the beach.

"You know what, he said, grinning. Despite getting bogged and missing the waves, that was a great day. Fair dinkum. I wouldn't trade it for anything." So, 'fair dinkum'. This can be used in a few different ways in Australian English. You could use it when talking about someone 'being authentic'.

'He's fair dinkum. He's authentic.' 'He's serious. He's being truthful.' You can use it when checking if someone is being truthful. "Fair dinkum. Like, are you serious?" "Are you? Are you telling me the truth? Is that true? Fair dinkum."

And here, it's kind of like he's he's, um. It's kind of like an exclamation, I guess. He's kind of like, you know, it's sort of like, Wow. You know? 'Wow. I wouldn't trade this for the world.' Like feeling like, 'in all seriousness'. Like, 'Truthfully, I wouldn't trade this for the world. Fair dinkum.' So he's using it in that sense.

"His friends nodded in agreement. Same time next weekend?, Mark asked." So here again, we've kind of shortened the sentence a great deal because context is obvious. 'Do you want to do this the same time next weekend?' 'Shall we do this the same time next weekend?'.

So we we quite often do that in English. We just shorten everything down in spoken English to make it as fast as possible. 'Same time next weekend?' So, 'Do you want to do this again next weekend at the same time?'.

"Absolutely, Lily replied. And Jamie, don't forget your budgie smugglers next time." So 'budgie smugglers'. I wonder if you guys have heard this colourful Australian slang term. It is your 'bathers', your 'togs', your 'cozzies', your 'Speedos', your 'swimmers' that are like underwear for men, 'budgie smugglers'. And the tongue in cheek joke here is that it's as if you are trying to 'smuggle' 'small budgies', which are small parrots in your pants- because that's what Things look like, okay, I'm not going to get too descriptive.

We'll keep it G-rated. But that's the joke, right? 'Budgie smugglers'. And this. It's one of those things where it is kind of grotesque in how it's describing something, you know, when you really think about it. But it's used all the time. It's used in the media. It's used, you know, I could talk to my kids, 'Bring your budgie smuggler.' They would have no idea in terms of what I was actually alluding to, they would know what I meant. 'Get your swimmers'. But they wouldn't- you'd have to- yeah, I don't know. You get to teenage years and then you're like, ah, that's what it means.

"They all laughed as they drove off, ready to plan their next beach adventure." All right, guys, so I'm going to play the story for you one more time. Hopefully this time. Now you have better listening comprehension. You will understand a lot more of the vocab that's used here, so listen out for that. Keep an eye out for it. And don't forget to grab the free worksheet today as well. If you haven't done that already, it's linked in the description below. You will get the full transcript of the video with the highlighted vocab, you will get the glossary with all of the vocabulary, a definition and an example phrase of it being used, and then right at the bottom you will also have a quiz that will obviously quiz you on the 20 different pieces of vocab and expressions that are in today's story. So again, the link is in the description.

It was a scorching day, Saturday morning, and Jamie and his friends, Lily and Mark, were itching to get outside. It's too nice to stay home. Let's hit the beach. Jamie called to his friends. They packed their bathers towels and loaded the esky with food and drinks before driving off to the beach.

By noon, they arrived at the coast. The sun was blazing and the beach was chockers with people, but they managed to find a spot near the water and parked the car on the sand.

Blimey, it's packed, Jamie said, looking around. Everyone's out to catch some rays today. Lily, already wearing her sunnies, grinned as she took them off. You can catch rays later, she said. Let's go for a dip first. It's way too hot to just sit here.

As they strip down to their bathers, Jamie suddenly realised he'd forgotten his. Damn it! I've only got my jocks. Mark chuckled. Well, they'll have to do. Just make sure you don't lose them in the surf, or you're on your own. Lily laughed as she ran down to the water. If that happens, at least it'll scare the sharks away, Jamie!

The water was perfect, but the surf wasn't doing much. Looks like the water's flat as a tack, Jamie commented, watching a few surfers floating around aimlessly. Not much action today.

Mark, who had brought his surfboard, sighed in disappointment. Oh, I was hoping to catch some waves, but it's not happening. Look at all the shark biscuits out there with nothing to do. He decided to leave the surfboard on the sand and join them for a swim instead.

After cooling off in the water, they returned to their towels and cracked open the esky to grab some cold drinks. Jamie stretched out and sighed contentedly. Oh, I could do this all day. Guess I'm turning into a beach bum.

Mark laughed. Mate, you already are! He lay back and added, Still, I'm stoked we made it out here. Nothing beats a sunny day at the beach.

Just then, a gust of wind blew through and Lily, who had been trying to balance on the edge of a small wave, took a tumble right into the water. She quickly popped up laughing. Well, that wasn't graceful. But no worries, she said, flicking the water from her hair.

After a while, they decided to head back to the car, but when they reached it, they realised they were stuck. We're bogged, Jamie groaned, shaking his head. Knew I shouldn't have parked on the sand. With some help from a friendly passer-by, they finally managed to get the car free.

As they packed up their gear and prepared to leave, Jamie took one last look at the ocean and smiled. You know what? He said, grinning. Despite getting bogged and missing the waves. That was a great day. Fair dinkum. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

His friends nodded in agreement. Same time next weekend. Mark asked. Absolutely, Lily replied. And Jamie, don't forget your budgie smugglers next time. They all laughed as they drove off, ready to plan their next beach adventure.

Alrighty, so that's it for today's podcast episode, guys. Again, please go check it out on YouTube. Give it a watch, download the free worksheet as well and give me some feedback if you guys really enjoyed it. If you hated it, whatever you want. Like if you have some kind of a reaction, positive or negative, please let me know as I would love to do more of these in the future.

And if you have some suggestions for topics as well as I think I stated at the end of the video, leave them in a comment on the video on YouTube, send me an email, send me a message on Instagram or on the website. Let me know what topics would you guys like to cover because we can do that in the future for sure. Anyway, it's a pleasure guys. Thank you so much for joining me. I am your host, Pete. This is Aussie English and I will see you next time!