Transcript of AE 1200 - Expression: Do The Heavy Lifting

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, you mob. How's it going? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. I am your host Pete, and it is another expression episode today where I'm going to teach you to use the expression "to do the heavy lifting". "To do the heavy lifting". I wonder if you've heard this one before.

Before we get into that, guys, don't forget, if you want the transcripts to these podcast episodes, if you want the bonus episodes, if you want access to the premium podcast player, so you can read and listen at the same time, be sure to sign up for the Premium podcast at www.AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast, so go check that out.

Anyway, it's been a pretty good week, although I am lacking a bit of sleep. My daughter at the moment is deciding to always get up at about, I don't know, two or three in the morning and want to sleep with the person that is sleeping in her room, which is usually, well, it's 50/50, it's me some nights. It's my wife the other nights. But yeah, she's a bit of a restless sleeper. She's always moving around, you know, slapping your face, making noises, kicking, turning around. And it's just like, just keeps you awake forever. So, battling with sleep deprivation at the moment, my wife and I. We are both battling with sleep deprivation.

Anyway, I hope you guys have been having an amazing week. Let's get into today's Q and A, Question and Answer, and this one comes from Ishtar on Instagram. Thank you for the question, Ishtar! So, the question was "What's your favourite Brazilian food?"

So this is a good question and there are quite a lot of good foods. And I found this, you know, it doesn't matter what culture, what ethnicity, there's always good food. I think humans in general like food, right? We love food and there just tends to always be something that is worth eating in pretty much every single culture around the world. I would bet money on it. And Brazil is no different.

So if I had to put it down to, to one or two things, it's not easy. It's not easy. Coxinha. So, coxinha C O X I N H A coxinha. This means "little thigh" and it is sort of like a deep fried food with chicken on the inside. Sometimes, I think, I think there might be a sauce or cheese as well in there, I'm not sure, but generally it's one of these sort of deep fried foods which you can meet in the middle. So I love these with tomato sauce, and most Brazilians are probably going to be like, 'What the hell, dude?' But you guys eat pizza with tomato sauce. So, you know, judge not.

And the other one would be pao de queijo! Pao de queijo P A O space D E space Q U E I J O. Pao de queijo is 'cheese bread' in English. And I like having this, you heat this up in the oven. They're kind of small little bread-y things with cheese in them, obviously. And I like mixing this with Vegemite. It is killer with Vegemite and I think it's just that vegemite and cheese combination.

I think again, most Brazilians would probably be like, 'Pete, what the F', you know, 'What are you doing? Don't mix it with Vegemite, just have it as it is.' But when I first had pao de queijo, I was thinking, 'Goddamn, this would be so good with Vegemite.' And trust me guys, it's worth it. If you like Vegemite, it's worth it. So yeah. coxinha and pao de queijo. Pao de queijo. They are probably my favourite foods from Brazil, but there are so many good foods. So you know it's difficult and there's so much I haven't tried.

Anyway. Slap the bird guys and let's get into today's joke!

So, today's joke is why was the farmer kicked out of the gym? Why was the farmer kicked out of the gym? Because he was destroying his calves.

Do you get it? He was 'destroying his calves'. So the joke here is on the word 'calf' or well, 'calves' for plural, 'calf' for singular. If we talk about your 'calf', as in part of your body, it is the lower portion of your leg and it's that meaty muscle behind your leg. So lower than your knee, right? That is your 'calf'. Your 'calf muscle' or muscles- there's probably multiple muscles in there. But that's your 'calf'. Right? Your 'calf'.

And so if you're doing a lot of steps, if you're climbing up stairs, you're probably going to destroy your calves. Right. And we use 'destroy' here, when you go to the gym, to mean like you're doing a lot of, not permanent, damage to them, but you're working them really hard, right. Your going to feel really sore as a result. So you're, "Oh, man. I went to the gym and I 'destroyed' my calves today. It was amazing. They're going to be huge calves."

But if we talk about 'a farmer' and his 'calves', usually we're not going to be talking about his lower legs. We're going to be talking about 'baby cows'. And a baby cow is 'a calf'. C A L F, calf, calf. And that L is silent.

And the plural is 'calves' with the /v/ sound. Now the V, 'calves' and the L is still silent, so 'a calf' to 'calves'.

So there you go. That's the joke. "Why was the farmer kicked out of the gym?" "He was destroying his calves."

Anyway, let's get into the expression. Today's expression is "to do the heavy lifting". "To do the heavy lifting". Hopefully you saw how I tied in the joke with 'heavy lifting', right? You might go to the gym and do some 'heavy lifting' and you may also destroy your calves there.

So the expression "to do the heavy lifting", let's break down the different words in this expression. I'll tell you what it means. We'll go through some examples of how to use this in day to day English. We'll do a little pronunciation exercise, and then finally we'll finish up with a listening comprehension exercise from an Australian TV show.

Okay, so, "to do". I'm sure you'll know the verb to do, right? To perform an action. What are you currently doing? What's the action you're currently performing? "I'm 'doing' the cleaning at home." That's the action I'm doing. "I am cleaning the house. That's what I'm 'doing'." "I am 'doing' the cleaning. I am cleaning."

"The". This is 'the' definitive article, right? So 'the' specific thing, "I can see 'the' fence outside", right? My house is fenced. It's 'the' fence that I can see. It is 'the' specific fence, 'the'.

"Heavy". This is 'of great weight', right? Something that is difficult to lift or move. It is very heavy. "My car is 'heavy'. I can't lift my car." "There's a huge stone in the front of my garden, right. And it's 'heavy'." I can't lift it. It's very, very, very weighty.

And "lifting". Again, I'm sure you'll know this word lifting is the action of picking something up, elevating something. You 'lift' that thing, that is 'to pick it up'.

So, "to do the heavy lifting". So literally here it would mean that you are lifting up the heavy part of something. So, like if you're with two people and you guys had to move a lot of objects, if you are literally doing the heavy lifting, it would be like you're lifting up all the heavy stuff and your friends lifting up all the light stuff. So that's the literal meaning.

Figuratively, it is "to do the most work", you know, that is involved in achieving something. So to do the most difficult part of a task. Whether it is physically difficult, mentally difficult, psychologically or emotionally difficult, it doesn't matter. You know, it doesn't have to be something that is physically heavy. But if it is 'the most difficult part of a task', you are "doing the heavy lifting".

I tried to look into the origin of this expression, but I think there was nothing I could really find. So I think it's pretty obvious where this comes from, right? You're comparing lifting up something very, very heavy to doing some very, very difficult work.

So let's go through three examples of how I would use the expression "to do the heavy lifting" in everyday English.

Okay, So example number one, imagine you're helping a friend move house, right? So we're probably going to go through a little literal and figurative example here. So moving day arrives, they've organised a moving van to rent, but they want you to come over to hopefully help out lifting some of the heavier objects into the van and then out of the van into the new house. You know, maybe they've got a fridge, a washing machine, some sofas, a bed.

Bloody hell, those sofas that have like beds in them, you know, fold out mattresses. They are so heavy. We threw one out the other day and I had to drag it up the the driveway because my wife couldn't lift it, she couldn't do the heavy lifting. Get it?

So anyway, you arrive at your mate's house and they're like, 'Alright, let's do all of this packing. We'll put everything in the van.' And you notice after a while that you're the only person lifting up all the heavy stuff. And your mate is kind of just dealing around, you know, piss farting around, not doing anything much. He's lifting up all the light stuff, the light boxes, you know, maybe putting a few stuffed toys or something in the car, all the light stuff. You're doing the heavy stuff. So you're left "doing the heavy lifting", both literally and figuratively.

Literally, you are lifting up all of the heavy objects and putting them in the van. And figuratively, you're "doing the heavy lifting", meaning you're doing the most difficult part of the job, which in this example just so happens to be lifting heavy things.

Example number two, imagine you're at uni and you've got a group project to do. So this would always happen to me when I was doing science at university, when I was studying science. There would be subjects pretty much, I think from first year onwards that would require multiple people to be involved in a single project, right? You might be writing an essay and then presenting your work. You might be constructing something, you might be doing an experiment, but you are having to do it with a group of people and you were marked, you were given a mark all together as a result of your work.

Inevitably, you would get a group of people together, or you would be given a group that you were in. And certain members of the group would do more than other members of the group. Or certain members of the group would do the more difficult tasks, and other members would do their easy tasks.

So if you're left there doing all the really difficult stuff whilst your other group members are doing all the easy stuff, you're the one "doing the heavy lifting", right? You're the one who has "to do all the heavy lifting". You're doing all the difficult tasks.

Example number three. Imagine you're a tradie, a tradesman or a trades woman, and you work as a landscape designer, right? So this is where you go to someone's house and you help them decide on what they're going to do with their, say, backyard and front yard. You know how they're going to design it or how are they going to put it together. So you get a certain job where you have to do this and there's a lot of stuff that you have to do. You've got to move earth, you've got to dig things up. You've got to place stones, bury trees. You could do this by hand. You could, you know, get a shovel and a pick and all that sort of stuff and do this yourself.

But it's much easier if you get heavy machinery to help you out. Things like diggers or Bobcats or ploughs, whatever it is that you need to be able to get into the yard to do all the digging and everything for you, and lifting up of heavy objects. So these machines are the things that "do the heavy lifting", right? It makes the job a lot easier for you. You get to just sit in, say, a Bobcat, and drive around someone's yard, digging things up, placing things in certain places, and you don't get wrecked. You don't get destroyed by all of this physical labour. The machine does it for you. The machine is there "to do the heavy lifting".

So there you go, guys. Hopefully now you understand the expression "to do the heavy lifting". This is 'to do most of the work involved in something' or 'to do the most difficult part of a task'.

So now let's go through a little pronunciation exercise. This is where I'm going to read out different words and phrases. So we'll go through the phrase "to do the heavy lifting" and we'll learn how to pronounce each of the words, as well as the phrase itself.

Focus on things like the Australian accent. If you're interested in that intonation, stress, everything like that. And then I'm also going to conjugate through the phrase, 'I'm going to do the heavy lifting', 'you're going to do the heavy lifting', etc.. So are you ready? Let's go.

To. To do. To do the. To do the heavy. To do the heavy lifting. To do the heavy lifting. To do the heavy lifting. To do the heavy lifting. To do the heavy lifting. I'm going to do the heavy lifting. You're going to do the heavy lifting. He's going to do the heavy lifting. She's going to do the heavy lifting. We're going to do the heavy lifting. They're going to do the heavy lifting. It's going to do the heavy lifting. Good work, guys.

So let's go through a little bit of what's going on in these phrases "to do the heavy lifting". "To do the heavy lifting". Can you hear which phrases, or sorry, which words are being stressed in this phrase "to do the heavy lifting", "to do the heavy lifting".

So it's all of the important words in the phrase. It is 'do', the verb, 'heavy', an adjective, and then 'lifting', a noun here, or the gerund. "To do the heavy lifting".

Da da da da da da da. "To do the heavy lifting". And in the words 'heavy' and 'lifting', which syllables are being stressed, 'heavy' 'lifting'. It's the first syllable in each word, right? You're not saying hea-vy' lif-ting', you're saying hea'-vy lif'-ting.

Lastly, you may hear from time to time, especially Australians, reducing -ing at the ends of words like 'lifting' to just /ən/. So like a schwa /-in/ sound /ən/ /ən/ /to do the heavy liftən/.

So you'll hear them really reduce that second syllable /liften'/ /liften'/ /liften'/ instead of /ˈlɪftɪŋ/, right or /ˈlɪftɪŋ/, /ˈlɪftɪŋ/, /ˈlɪftɪŋ/ /to do the heavy liften'/ /to do the heavy liften' done/. So that's a very common Australian thing.

And don't forget, guys, if you want to learn how to do these kinds of advanced aspects to Australian pronunciation, check out my Australian pronunciation course. Just go to www.AussieEnglish.com.au/apc and you will see everything inside there. You'll learn how to use the IPA, the International Phonetic Alphabet, to learn and improve your pronunciation on your own so you can look up a word in a dictionary, see the IPA and know how to pronounce it. You'll also go through every single consonant and vowel sound in Australian English with detailed tutorials and exercise videos so that you can master those sounds. And then lastly, I have 25 advanced lessons covering things like "liftən'", that /ən/ there at the end. The Syllabic N, we call it, and how to master those sounds. So go check that out www.AussieEnglish.com.au/apc.

So the last little section here guys, this is where I'm going to play some audio, a little clip here from a, an Australian TV show called Bump. And the excerpt from this show is "An Australian comedy drama series about Olympia or Olly, an overachieving 17 year old student who knows exactly where she's going. Ollie and her friend Reema R E E M A share an ambitious ten-year plan: top grades, international relations at a university, work for the UN, and save the world. But an unplanned pregnancy changes everything."

So there you go. It's an interesting story about teenage girls, one of them who's obviously a very high achiever and she suddenly gets pregnant.

So yeah, the rules of the game today are that I'm going to play you two clips. I'll play well, it's one clip. I'm going to play you twice so that you can hopefully listen and write down what you hear. Okay. The answer will be in the transcript for today's episode. If you're a Premium podcast member and it will also be in the free worksheet, if you want to download that from the podcast episode page and you'll see it there at the bottom. There's also a section in the worksheet where you can print out the worksheet and write what you think you hear in this little exercise. Okay, so are you ready for the first playthrough? Here we go.

Is it possible she’s pregnant? No. No way! Can I have a quick feel? I think you might be having a baby. No, she's not. No, no way. Fuck that!

Good job, guys. Good job. How'd you go? Did you get all of it? Time for the second playthrough.

Is it possible she’s pregnant? No. No way! Can I have a quick feel? I think you might be having a baby. No, she's not. No, no way. Fuck that!

All right, Awesome work, guys. I hope you enjoy this episode. I hope to chat to you all soon. I hope you have a great week. And, yeah, I will see you next time. All the best!