Transcript of AE 1204 - Expression: Beat Yourself Up

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!

G'day, guys! How's it going? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. I am your host, Pete, and I hope you are having an amazing week. And yes, this is the number one place for everyone and anyone wanting to learn Australian English- almost forgot to say that at the start, a little catch phrase.

So yeah, I've just dropped my wife off at work and I went for a bit of a cruise. I went for a bit of a drive. I went to Bunnings, had a look at some of the plants there. My son and I were working in the front yard the other day. He was helping me dig up some grass and make a little gardening bed kind of thing, a little flower bed, plant bed. I don't know what you would describe it as, unless there are flowers going in there. But we made some soil up, mixed up some sand, perlite and some premium potting soil and then put it into the ground so that we can, yeah, plant some plants.

So it's going to be a fun little activity for my son, Noah and I, to do in the near future. But I was having a look in the outdoor plant section trying to work out what kind of plants would go well in our front yard. So that's what I've been up to this morning.

So, guys, before we get into today's episode, don't forget, if you want to get access to the transcripts, the bonus episodes, the premium podcast player and everything else, sign up for the Premium Podcast membership at www.AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast.

And also, don't forget to grab today's free worksheet. You'll be able to get this on the website via the podcast episode page for this podcast and you will, yeah, you'll get the vocab for today. You'll get some of the expression examples. As well as some exercises in there. And the little listen and writing exercise at the end. You'll also get the answer for that at the very end of the worksheet as well.

So let's get into today's question. This one comes from Victor, who asks, "Are you still learning or studying Portuguese?" So yeah, this is a bit of a tough one, mate. At the moment I'm not actively studying Portuguese, so I don't have like, workbooks. I'm not learning grammar, I'm not really watching TV shows or reading books in Portuguese because I'm just so busy with so many other things that I don't really even get to do those things in English.

Besides watching The Last of Us recently, I was watching that obviously in English. A friend and I would watch that one episode each week and catch up and sort of discuss what was going on and what we thought because we love that video game.

But yeah, back to Portuguese. I speak it at home with my family as much as possible, but I have noticed I am at that sort of intermediate plateau in terms of my learning. Because I've noticed, at least for the last probably 2 or 3 years, that my Portuguese hasn't improved a great deal, if at all.

In fact, it may have even gotten slightly worse since stopping sort of actively learning and actively studying the language. Because unfortunately, and you guys will know what this is like, I imagine. Even if you're using the language on a day-to-day basis and you're speaking a lot, you quickly adapt, right, to your settings, your surroundings, your environment. And you sort of master the English, or the Portuguese in this case, that you need to use to sort of get by. And you don't learn much more, right? Unless you are actively putting in the work, actively putting in the time studying, trying to learn new vocab, looking up expressions, changing, you know, the mistakes you're making, working on pronunciation.

You don't really improve unless you're putting your mind to it. And I think it's the same sort of thing with exercise, with going to the gym. If you're not constantly challenging yourself and trying to improve, you're not going to, well, yeah, you're not going to improve, right? So that's my current situation with Portuguese at the moment. I'm using it every day, but I'm just not actively studying as much as I probably should be. But it's tough. It's tough being a father of two kids and having a wife who works full time. And I work full time as well, really. And yeah, just trying to manage all of these different interests and hobbies and everything like that. It's not easy.

It's not easy. You got to sort of prioritise and then hope. Hope that there's more time in the future once the kids are a little older. So anyway, guys, with that aside, slap the bird and let's get into today's joke.

So today's joke is, "Why did the two deaf men want to fight?" Why did the two deaf men- so, men who can't talk. Men who can't talk?! Men who can't hear, right. Men who can't hear. They're not mute. They're deaf.

"Why did the two deaf men want to fight?" "Because they wanted to let their fists do the talking!" Do you get it? "They wanted to let their 'fists' do the talking."

So your 'fist' is your closed hand, right, where the knuckles displayed. And you can punch someone with your fist, right? Maybe you hit the table with your 'fist'. The pun here is on 'fists do the talking'.

So this is a sort of expression that's quite often used in English, or saying, where we talk about, you know, 'using your fists to do the talking', or 'letting your fists do the talking'.

The idea here is that instead of boasting or bragging or telling everyone how you're amazing, you're just going to show them how that's the case, right? If you let X do the talking. So in the case of 'fists', if you 'let your fists do the talking', it's like, "We're no longer going to talk. We're no longer going to try and discuss things. We're going to fight." Right?

So, "Why did the two deaf men want to fight?" The point here being that they can't hear each other. And they wanted to 'let their fists do the talking' instead of them, you know, "doing the talking". Right? So hopefully you get the joke.

Anyway, let's get in today's- into today's expression. Today's expression is "to beat yourself up". Hopefull,y you see how this is somewhat related to the joke. "To beat yourself up." So let's go through the different words in this expression. We'll go through what it means. We'll go through some examples of how to use it in daily English. We'll go through a little pronunciation exercise. And then we'll do a little listening and writing exercise at the end. Okay.

So, "to beat", right? If you 'beat someone or something', it can mean 'to hit them'. So you can use your fist to 'beat someone'. You can hit or strike that person, or that thing, or whatever it is, with your fist. But you could also 'beat something' with an object, right? If you pick up a stick, you could 'beat' a dog. If you're a really horrible person, right? If you hit a dog with a stick, you're 'beating' the dog with a stick.

Horse racers or riders, people who are on horses in races, I guess they're called jockeys. There's a, there's a word for them, Pete! Jockeys. They use a whip and they 'beat' the horse to make the horse go faster. And maybe a baker might 'beat' the dough that he's using to make bread. Right?

But we can also use it to mean defeat. So if you 'beat' someone at something, you might 'beat' someone at a game of chess. You, you defeat them, right? You win. Maybe you 'beat' someone in a race.

But yeah, in this expression, 'to beat yourself up', it would be the literal sense of of hurting yourself, hitting yourself, striking yourself. So if you 'beat someone up', you bash them up, you punch them, you really hurt them, right? By physically 'beating' them.

Yeah, using your hands. So he, "He beat someone up at the gym", or "The boxer beat his opponent up".

And, 'yourself'. 'Yourself' is used to refer to the second person or the person being addressed as the object of a verb or preposition when they are the subject of the clause. So it's sort of complicated here, but it's effectively how we make verbs reflexive. So you're doing the verb to yourself, right? So, "I fell over and I hurt myself". Or, "You went for a run and you injured yourself". "The cat is licking itself", so it's doing the verb to itself, if that makes sense.

So, "to beat yourself up", literally. The idea here, I guess, would be that you are bashing yourself up, right? Harming yourself, hitting yourself with your own fists. You're 'beating yourself up', right?

But, figuratively, here, we use it to mean 'to continually criticise or question yourself usually about something that you can't change'. So it's commonly heard in the negative. "Don't beat yourself up", right? The idea here being don't, don't always be criticising yourself. Or questioning yourself, or being nice to yourself about something that you can't change. You know, don't be really horrible to yourself about something you can't change. "Don't beat yourself up."

So let's go through three examples of how I would use the expression "to beat yourself up". When was the last time you guys 'beat yourselves up'?

So, example number one. Imagine you've been working hard at a new job. You got it a while back in the hopes of getting, you know, a promotion. So you got this job. You've been working really hard. You want to get this promotion. That's why you're working so hard, right? You've done over time, you're taking courses at the moment to try and upskill. You want to increase your knowledge in that area. You've worked your butt off, right? You have put in a lot of hard yakka, a lot of hard work.

So you apply for the promotion, you go through the interview process, maybe there's an exam, all that sort of jazz, right? All that sort of stuff. But unfortunately, you end up just being passed over for another colleague that you have who just turns out to have a little bit more experience than you, and is slightly a better fit for the job.

So, you might feel really bad about this. You might feel horrible, you might feel depressed down in the dumps, but your friends might tell you, "Mate, you did so well. You're working so hard, you're so talented, don't beat yourself up." "You shouldn't beat yourself up. This is not the time to beat yourself up. You did an amazing job. You'll get it next time, mate. Don't beat yourself up."

Example number two. Imagine your son is an avid footy player, so he joined Auskick at a younger age. Since, you know, he's always loved footy and he's obsessed with the sport. So he joined up and as he's growing up, he's always had a footy in his hand, right? He's always had a football anywhere. He's gone, he plays for the local team. They've done really well this season and they've gotten into the finals, so everything's going really well.

But the opposition here, the other team that he's going to be playing against in the finals, in the grand final, is incredibly talented as well. So the day comes and he, you know, puts his gear on, he grabs the footy, they head out onto the field and they are destroyed by this other team, right?

So they've worked really hard all season. They've gotten into the finals, but they end up getting destroyed by the other team. They get beaten by the other team. So at the end of the day, your son may feel awful. He may feel atrocious, he may feel depressed down in the dumps. He may feel a bit blue. But you as your, you know, you're a good dad. You go over to him, you give him a cuddle, you give him a hug, and you say, "Mate, don't beat yourself up. You put in your best. You know you did as well as you could." "You should be really proud of yourself. Don't beat yourself up right, mate, You shouldn't beat yourself up."

Example number three. Imagine you're a teenage girl, right? And you've just started dating boys, so you've gotten yourself a boyfriend. But because you don't have much experience when it comes to relationships, you don't really know what you've got, right? Like, you don't know how good he is, how bad he is. You don't really have any sort of perspective on how he compares as a boyfriend to, say, other boys out there.

So maybe in a few months or even a few weeks or maybe a few days, you end up getting a little bored with this new partner of yours, this boyfriend. And you decide, "You know what, I'm going to break up with this guy despite them actually being, you know, a really good catch", right? They're a really good match for me. They seem lovely, but I have no experience. And so, yeah, I feel like I'm bored. I'll go hunting, see what else I can find and see what else is out there. Soon after you've made this decision, though, you realise the mistake that you've made. But it's too late. The guy has moved on. He's found someone else, right? He's found a better match for him. Someone who won't dump him on a whim, right.

So you might feel really bad for what you decided to do, but you can't change it. It is what it is, You know, self-love. There's nothing you can do, but you shouldn't 'beat yourself up', right? So, "Hopefully you're not beating yourself up too much. You're still young. There's plenty of fish in the sea. You broke up with a guy who was a good match with you, but you didn't know any better. Now you do. Don't beat yourself up."

So hopefully now, guys, you understand the expression 'to beat yourself up'. This is to continually criticise or question yourself or be nasty to yourself, to be horrible to yourself about something that you can't change. Right? And remember, we often hear this in the negative. "Don't beat yourself up". "You shouldn't 'beat yourself up', mate." "I wouldn't beat myself up if I was in the same situation as you." "You shouldn't beat yourself up."

So as usual, guys, let's go through a little pronunciation exercise in this section. This is where you repeat these words and phrases out loud after me. Try and work on your Australian pronunciation. So are you ready? Let's go.

Don't. Don't beat. Don't beat yourself. Don't beat yourself up. Don't beat yourself up. Don't beat yourself up. Don't beat yourself up. Don't beat yourself up. I've been beating myself up. You've been beating yourself up. He's been beating himself up. She's been beating herself up. We've been beating ourselves up. They've been beating themselves up. It's been beating itself up. Good job, guys. Good job.

So, let's talk a little bit about connected speech here. You may have noticed that initially when I was saying 'don't beat yourself up', I was really pronouncing the T's at the end of the words 'don't' and 'beat'. But as soon as I said the phrase, the entire phrase, 'don't beat yourself up', Did you hear any hard T's in there? 'Don't beat yourself up'. 'Don't beat yourself up'.

No! So the T's at the ends of the words are followed by consonants, or semivowels, like /jʊ/ at the front of 'yourself'. So as a result, we can mute those T's. So, you'll hear. /Don'(t) bea(t) yourself up/. /Don'(t) bea(t) yourself up/. /Don'(t) bea(t) yourself up/.

Now, interestingly, the T at the end of the word 'don't'- because we're saying an N before it. We stop it in our mouths, in the T position, right? So we say 'don't', with the tongue touching the roof of our mouth. /Don'(t)/, /don'(t)/.

But with /bea(t) yourself/, I find myself using the glottal stop, to stop it in my throat, instead of in my mouth. /Bea(t)/. So I'm using /ʌ/, it's my throat doing it. /Bea(t)/, /bea(t) yourself/. /Bea(t) yourself/. /Bea(t) yourself/, /bea(t) yourself/. /Don'(t) bea(t) yourself up/.

So in English, it's really interesting the different ways that the pronunciation of T can change when we speak, and how we may mute it.

We may turn it into a T flap. We can mute it in different places in the mouth and the throat. It's a really, really, really advanced sort of set of, what would you say, pronunciations, for this letter when speaking English.

And remember, if you want to learn these things, if you want to learn how to use the glottal stop and the muting in the mouth for T and everything like that, check out the Australian pronunciation course. You can get this at www.AussieEnglish.com.au/apc

I've got loads of advanced lessons in there, in the third part of the course, that go through these sorts of things, right? The more advanced aspects of connected speech and spoken English. So yeah, go check that out.

Anyway, now it is time to go through the final section here, the little listen and writing exercise. Okay, so today I'm going to play a clip for you from a TV show called Five Bedrooms. And the excerpt is the following: "Tired of their perpetual single status, five friends at very different stages of their lives make the bold decision to pool their funds and buy a house together. What comes next is a tale of commitment and its consequences with good measures of love and heartbreak expected as part of such an intricate partnership."

So there you go. It seems like an interesting show. I haven't seen this, but I saw the trailer for it and it seems like it's an interesting kind of drama.

So the goal here is to listen to the little audio clip that I'm going to play for you and write out what you hear being said. Remember to get the free worksheet for today's episode on the website, and you will get a little section. You can print out this worksheet and there's a little section where you can actually write out what you hear. And at the bottom of the worksheet, you'll see the answer.

If you're in the Premium Podcast membership, you'll be able to see the answer and check it in the transcript as well if you would like. All right. So are you ready to go? Here's the first playthrough.

Well, maybe when you've been in a relationship a bit longer, you'll understand. What's that supposed to mean? You've been in love for about five minutes, Harry. It's not the same.

All right. Good job. How'd you go? Time for the second playthrough?

Well, maybe when you've been in a relationship a bit longer, you'll understand. What's that supposed to mean? You've been in love for about five minutes, Harry. It's not the same.

All right! That's it from me today, guys. I hope you had an amazing time listening to this episode, and I will see you in the next one. Wishing you all the best! Tooroo!