Transcript of AE 1154 - 5 Expressions To Sound Fluent in English | Part 9

Hey, Pete. I think Emily likes me.

How do you know?

I can just read between the lines, you know?

No. What are you reading? A new book. What's that got to do with Emily?

No, I mean, I can work things out without them being explicitly said.

Right. So what are you going to do?

Well, I guess this is where the rubber meets the road.

What? Now you're driving?

No, I mean, this is where things are going to get serious, right? I'm going to take no prisoners.

What? Is Emily in jail? Is she in trouble?

God damn it, Pete. I'm going to have to make another expression episode, aren't I?

I think so.

G'day, you mob! Welcome to this episode. Today we are going to focus on five expressions that are going to help you sound a lot more like a native speaker when speaking English.

I'm Pete, and if it's your first time here, I am the host of Aussie English, and I've been helping people level up their English for over half a decade now. If your goal is to take your English to the next level, in particular your Australian English, then this channel and this podcast is for you.

Before we get started, guys, don't forget that today's lesson comes with a worksheet which you can grab down below in the description. You'll be able to download it, follow along with the lesson, and do the exercises. When you sign up for this worksheet too, you'll also get all of the future worksheets sent to your email inbox directly.

And lastly, every single English expression that we cover today has been covered in depth on the Aussie English podcast, so you can go and check out each episode related to each of these expressions to really dive in.

All right, you ready to get started? Let's go. Expression number one: to make a fool out of yourself. Or just 'to make a fool of yourself'. And you can also 'make a fool out of someone else' or 'of someone else'.

So this is to embarrass yourself, if you make a fool out of yourself. But if you make a fool out of someone else, you're tricking or deceiving them and making them look foolish. For example, "I tripped over and made a fool out of myself." Or, "The conman deceived his victim and stole all their money making a fool out of them."

Expression number two: 'to read between the lines'. 'To read between the lines'. This is to look for or discover an implied meaning to something that isn't necessarily explicit. It's not obvious. For example, "After I had a fight with my wife, she threw me a pillow. I read between the lines and realised I was going to have to sleep on the couch." Or "Dad, why is this girl at school always teasing me?" "Mate, read between the lines. She likes you."

Expression number three: 'where the rubber meets the road'. 'Where the rubber meets the road'. This can mean when the action begins, when you begin a job, when you start to do something seriously. So for example, you're a shipbuilder, you've just built a huge new ship, you're about to launch it into the water. This is 'where the rubber meets the road'. This is where action takes place. It's going to be 'sink or swim'. We've also covered that on the podcast. Check it out here. But you're going to see if this boat works or if it fails. This is 'where the rubber meets the road'.

Example number two: You're a tennis player, you've just made it through to the finals. This is 'where the rubber meets the road'. You're going to have to start your job. It's going to get serious. This is where action takes place. You're going to have to do well. This is where the rubber meets the road.

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All right, expression number four, we're almost there to the end. So this one is: 'to take no prisoners'. 'To take no prisoners'. This means to be ruthlessly aggressive or uncompromising in the pursuit of your objectives. It can also be used literally, to mean that you, as an army or a team or a group, literally take no prisoners. You don't allow them to survive. So, for example, you're an army, you're at war.

You've just defeated the enemy and you've decided, 'Sorry, guys, we're going to take no prisoners, kill everyone.' For example, number two, a little less ruthless. You're an MMA fighter and you're about to go into the ring or the Octagon to fight. You're hoping you win. You're going 'to take no prisoners'. You're going to be ruthlessly aggressive, uncompromising in trying to achieve your goals. You're going to take no prisoners.

All right. And the last expression, guys, number five is 'to foot the bill'. 'To foot the bill'. It sounds like kicking a bill like maybe you walked up to a duck and just kicked it in the face, but it doesn't mean anything like that. So, 'to foot the bill' means to pay the bill for something, the amount of money required for something, especially when it is rather large and unreasonable in amount.

So for example, you and your mates go out for coffee, you go out for brunch, all of a sudden you go to the toilet, come back. Everyone's bailed. After they finish their coffees and finish their food, you're left 'to foot the bill'. You're the one who has to pay for everyone's food and drink because they've all gone. They've done a runner, they've bailed. You're left having to foot the bill.

Example number two: Your daughter's getting married and she's come to you and said, "Dad, can you foot the bill for the wedding? Can you pay for things? I mean, I am the bride.." And the dad's like, "Hell no, I'm not going to be left footing the bill for your wedding. There's no way that it's just going to be up to. To pay for everything. I am not going to foot the bill."

All right, guys, well done. They are the five expressions. So now I've got a little exercise for you. This is where I want you to pause the video. I'll show the expressions on the screen, and I want you to go into the comment section and write your own example sentence using one of these expressions. And I will see you shortly.

Okay. So now comes the fun part of today's lesson with an English exercise. Now, in the last episode we focussed on conjugating different future tenses and I will leave the link up here if you want to go and check that out after this video. But in today's lesson, we're going to focus on contracting the phrase "would not have".

So, we can contract this when speaking quickly in English and instead of 'would not have' it sounds like "wouldn’ah", "wouldn’ah", "wouldn’ah".

For example: "I wouldn't've thought so." I would not have thought so. I wouldn't've thought so." "Or you wouldn't've known." You would not have known. "You wouldn't've known."

So, learning these contractions is a great way to improve your spoken English and sound much more natural when speaking. And if you haven't checked it out already, check out my Spoken English course or my Australian Pronunciation course. These two will really help you level up your speaking skills with Australian pronunciation specifically, but also general English pronunciation and contractions as well. The links will be in the description below.

All right, so let's jump into the exercise. So I'm going to use these five expressions from today's lesson in five different sentences, I'll say them first, uncontracted, where we'll say 'would not have', and then I'll say them contracted with "wouldn’ah". Okay, so just listen and repeat after me. Let's go.

I would not have made a fool of myself. I wouldn't've made a fool of myself. I wouldn't've made a fool of myself. It's interesting that too you'll notice that of in the end of the phrase there, 'of myself', becomes just 'oh'. I wouldn't have made a fool-oh myself. I wouldn't have made a fool of myself.

He would not have read between the lines. He wouldn't've read between the lines. He wouldn't've read between the lines.

You would not have known. This is where the rubber meets the road. You wouldn't've known. This is where the rubber meets the road. You wouldn't've known. This is where the rubber meets the road.

They would not have taken any prisoners. They wouldn't've taken any prisoners. Notice there how we say the word 'pris-ner'. There's only two syllables, right? It looks like it should be "pri-so-ner" or "pri-so-nuh". But we say 'pris'ner', 'pris'ner', 'pris'ner'. They wouldn't've taken any prisoners.

She definitely would not have footed the bill. She definitely wouldn't've footed the bill. She definitely wouldn't've footed the bill.

Great work, guys. So that's it for today's episode!

The biggest thing here, I think at the end in this exercise, when you're saying ‘wouldn’ah’, it's kind of a really advanced aspect of pronunciation in English. When you say the D sound there, "would'n", "would'n". Because it's not "wood-en", "woo-den", with a hard D sound. It's actually "would'n", "would'n".

You're going sort of straight into the syllabic N. It's called with nasal release. So your mouth is effectively going into the D position, stopping the air from coming out of your mouth, and then it's coming out your nose. Your mouth is allowing air to go through your nasal passage and come out your nose as the vowel sound "would'n" "would'n". ‘Wouldn’ah’, ‘wouldn’ah’, ‘wouldn’ah’, ‘wouldn’ah’, ‘wouldn’ah’, ‘wouldn’ah’, ‘wouldn’ah’, ‘wouldn’ah’.

So that's a very advanced aspect of Australian English pronunciation and I think English pronunciation more generally. I think Americans and some Brits might use the Syllabic N with nasal release. If you want to learn more about this, check out my Australian Pronunciation course. We go through the Syllabic N and the Syllabic L sounds. These are very advanced sounds, but really, they make you sound much more natural when you nail them. Okay, you can learn them easily. Just check out my course, the Australian Pronunciation course in the link below.

And don't forget you can listen to all of the expressions that we went through in today's episode on the podcast in their individual lessons. So anyway, thank you so much for joining me, mate. I hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you next time.