Shadowing Practice: Day at the Beach | Learn Australian English with a Short Story - Learn English Speaking with Video

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 Ray's today.

Lily, already wearing her sunnies, grinned as she took them off.

You can catch Ray's later, she said.

Let's go for a dip first.

It's way too hot to just sit here.

As they stripped 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.

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.

Ugh, 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 passerby, 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 which 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.

100

It means to go to the beach.

101

I guess the idea is like your bodies are going to get to the beach and go onto the beach.

102

You're like metaphorically hitting the beach, not literally.

103

I guess you could trip over and your body could hit the beach.

104

But metaphorically here or figuratively, we're saying hit the beach as in to go to the beach.

105

So, I love hitting the beach with my friends in summer.

106

My kids and I, we might hit the beach this weekend.

107

Let's keep going.

108

So, they packed their bathers, towels and loaded the esky with food and drinks before driving off to the beach.

109

They packed their bathers.

110

Bathers is one of the several slang terms we use in Australia for swimwear.

111

So, I think this is typically Victoria, South Australia.

112

It might be Perth, Western Australia as well, and Tasmania.

113

It's that southern part of Australia.

114

We use bathers.

115

I then think that people from New South Wales will say things like togs and maybe cosy as well.

116

I think Queensland too.

117

It's up north in New South Wales and Queensland, they'll use togs and cosy a little more frequently than bathers.

118

I think bathers is definitely a very south part of Australia slang term.

119

And then we have the word esky here.

120

Esky.

121

And esky, that is a cooler, right, where you put food to keep it cool.

122

It's like an insulated box where you can put ice and then you can put your drinks in there.

123

You can put your food in there and you usually take it to a party.

124

You might take it to the beach.

125

Funnily enough, you can take it to many different places.

126

Next sentence.

127

By noon, they arrived at the coast.

128

The sun was blazing and the beach was chockers with people.

129

But they managed to find a spot near the water and parked the car on the sand.

130

So, most of this is going to be pretty easy, I think, for you guys.

131

The sun was blazing. That would...

132

It's sort of like scorching.

133

I guess the idea is it's very bright, right?

134

The sun was blazing.

135

It was very bright, hot sun.

136

and the beach was chockers.

137

Chockers here is short for chocker block and these are both slang terms

138

that just mean very full and you can use this about items, you know, your esky might be chocker block, it might be chockers full of food and drinks,

139

but you could also use it when talking about people.

140

The beach is absolutely chockers and the rest of the, I guess, insinuation there is that it's chockers with people.

141

It's chockers, it's chock a block full of other human beings, right?

142

So, it's interesting how we shorten it there.

143

Well, actually, we didn't shorten it here, but you could just say the beach is chockers.

144

Here, we did say the beach was chockers with people.

145

So, that's a really cool phrase that you'll hear all the time in Australian English.

146

Blimey, it's packed, Jamie said, looking around.

147

Everyone's out to catch some rays today.

148

So, there's some interesting vocabulary.

149

Firstly, blimey.

150

This is an interesting word.

151

We use this sort of like to show shock, surprise that you're impressed by something.

152

Blimey.

153

It's similar to crikey or if you wanted to get religious, you could say Jesus, you know.

154

Well, you don't have to be religious to say Jesus, but we often use that.

155

Bloody hell, you could use that too.

156

And you could use a number of other rude words to show that you're shocked or surprised.

157

Blimey is not rude.

158

We don't really see that as rude.

159

It probably was once upon a time.

160

Nowadays, you can say it and it's kind of like, it's informal, but it's not going to turn heads like, whoa, what did he say?

161

You know, oh my God, he said blimey.

162

It's packed.

163

Pact is similar to chockers, right?

164

So, these things are echoing one another.

165

Chockers, the narrator was using this to say that the beach was full of people.

166

And then Jamie here is saying, blimey, it's packed.

167

Packed.

168

It's packed full of people.

169

It's packed with people.

170

And you could also say it's packed to the rafters.

171

This is another expression that I guess means...

172

There are a lot of people in a single house.

173

I think that would be the idea.

174

It's a TV show as well that was on TV, I think, probably over a decade ago.

175

The idea being there were lots of people living in a single house packed to the rafters.

176

But yes, packed, chockers, very full.

177

Jamie said, looking around, everyone's out to catch some rays today.

178

So, if you catch some rays, these are rays from the sun, right?

179

The sun is shining rays down on the earth.

180

That is the light and the UV, which I guess is a form of light and you are catching it with your body, right?

181

So, if you're catching rays, you're sunbathing, you're sunbaking, you're out there trying to get a tan

182

or you could use this just meaning you're outside wanting to enjoy the sun, right?

183

Catching some rays.

184

So, this is another good expression.

185

I don't think this is unique to Australia.

186

You can probably use this all over the world.

187

You know, you can catch some rays in the UK, you can do it in America and people would get the idea.

188

here.

189

Lily, already wearing her sunnies, grinned as she took them off.

190

You can catchphrase later, she said.

191

Let's go for a dip first.

192

It's way too hot to just sit here.

193

So, sunnies, the first phrase here.

194

Lily, already wearing her sunnies.

195

So, she's obviously pulled out her sunglasses and she's put her sunnies, as we call them in Australia, her sunglasses on, right?

196

She's wearing her sunnies.

197

Grinned as she took them off.

198

I guess she took them off as soon as you put them on.

199

You can catch some rays later.

200

Now, we have catch some rays later.

201

You can sit on the beach.

202

You can suntan.

203

You can sunbathe.

204

You can do that later on.

205

Let's go for a dip first.

206

So, to go for a dip.

207

A dip here means a swim.

208

And if you go for a dip, which is a common expression we use in Australia, this is to go for a swim.

209

You can go for a dip at the beach.

210

You can go for a dip at the pool.

211

If you go to a farm that has a huge dam, you might go for a dip in the dam.

212

You could go to a river and go for a dip.

213

So, it is to go for a swim.

214

Let's continue on.

215

As they stripped down to their bathers, Jamie suddenly realised he'd forgotten his.

216

Damn it.

217

I've only got my jocks.

218

So, firstly, I'll probably go through the phrasal verb, stripped down to something.

219

If you're wearing clothes and you stripped 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.

220

I don't know if you would say you stripped down to nudity, being naked.

221

You would say you just stripped down if you got completely naked, right?

222

So, if you stripped down to something, you can strip down to your underwear, you could strip down to your socks, you could strip down to your bathers.

223

It's usually that you've taken off most of your clothes

224

and you only have one or two items left on your body to strip down to something.

225

And I guess that's the reason we're using down, right?

226

We're reducing the amount of clothing we're wearing.

227

Damn it!

228

Another good little expression here to show frustration or anger.

229

Sort of like blimey, I guess, but it's more frustration and anger.

230

You wouldn't see an amazing sunset and say, damn it, you know?

231

I mean, I guess you could, but it would be like, why is the sunset making you angry, man?

232

It's a beautiful thing.

233

Whereas here, he's realized he's only got his underwear, he's only got his jocks, and so, he said in frustration and anger, damn it, right?

234

Damn it.

235

And yes, jocks, jocks means underwear, right, you're jocks, you're underwear.

236

And we can also call these undies in Australian English, undies.

237

Mark chuckled.

238

Well, they'll have to do.

239

Just make sure you don't lose them in the surf or you're on your own.

240

So, there wasn't any vocab I highlighted in this phrase, but there is some interesting stuff that we can talk about.

241

They'll have to do.

242

So, if something has to do or you have to make do with something, the idea here is that it will need to suffice.

243

That's going to have to be enough.

244

They'll have to do.

245

Look, mate, you're coming for a swim.

246

I don't care if you've got your jocks or you got nothing.

247

You're coming for a swim, mate.

248

Whatever you've got will have to do.

249

You'll have to make do.

250

It'll have to suffice.

251

It'll have to be enough.

252

Okay?

253

Just make sure you don't lose them in the surf.

254

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,

255

you lose them in the surf, or you're on your own.

256

And this is one of those phrases that when you say it, it sounds really funny.

257

You're on your own.

258

You're on your own.

259

You're on your own.

260

You're on your own.

261

I guess it rhymes, right?

262

It's got the your, your, your.

263

So, you're on your own this would be like, we're going to abandon you.

264

You are by yourself.

265

We're not helping.

266

You know, if you lose your jocks, it's not my problem, buddy.

267

You are by yourself.

268

You're going to be in the beach or in the surf naked.

269

We're going to be on the beach and you can deal with the repercussions.

270

I don't want to deal with that, right?

271

I'm not taking off my bathers to give to you, then I'll be naked.

272

So, yes, you're on your own.

273

You are all by yourself.

274

I'm not helping.

275

That's a good phrase to learn.

276

You're on your own.

277

Lily laughed as she ran down to the water.

278

We often use down and up when talking about...

279

the beach.

280

So, you run up the beach, the idea here being that it's away from the water.

281

Although, I guess you could use this to mean away from someone if 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,

282

like he ran up the beach.

283

It would be like, yeah, he ran along the beach but up away from me, or he ran down the beach to someone.

284

But here the idea is down the beach would be towards the water, up the beach would be away from the water towards the sand.

285

So, it's an interesting thing to think about when you break it down.

286

Lily laughed as she ran down to the water.

287

If that happens, at least it'll scare the sharks away, Jamie.

288

So, to scare something away, to cause something to be afraid to go away from you, right?

289

And she's making the joke that obviously if Jamie's naked, it's going to freak the sharks out.

290

Hey, mate, do you want to speak Australian English just like a fair dinkum Aussie?

291

If you do, then check out my English expressions 30 -day challenge.

292

Every single day for a month, you will get a new lesson that is going to teach you dozens of new expressions,

293

idioms, and advanced collocations in Australian English and English more generally.

294

Every single lesson includes a short story based in Australia, which is chock -a -block full of English expressions, idioms, and advanced collocations.

295

At the end of this, you will have a short quiz

296

that you can do to test your listening comprehension too

297

And you only need to study about 10 to 15 minutes a day

298

So if you want to check this out

299

and you want to get 50 % off Check out the link in the description

300

or go to aussieenglish .com .au forward slash expressions And use the coupon code 50 % off Okay,

301

so once again, go to aussieenglish .com .au forward slash expressions And use the coupon code 50 % off off.

302

To save, you guessed it, 50 % off.

303

Anyway, back to the lesson.

304

The water was perfect, but the surf wasn't doing much.

305

Looks like the water's flat as a tack, Jamie commented, watching a few surfers floating around aimlessly.

306

Not much action today.

307

So, flat as a tack.

308

We can use this to mean very flat, obviously, in terms of the water and the waves and the surf at the beach today.

309

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.

310

You wouldn't really, I don't know if you would really use another phrase in the case of the ocean, you know, saying it's very pointy today.

311

It's not flat.

312

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.

313

So, flat as a tack here.

314

We could use this to mean other things, which I'll probably won't cover in this episode because it'll get banned from YouTube.

315

No, it probably won't, but it's probably inappropriate.

316

But you can use this, yeah, in the other senses as well to mean just very, very flat.

317

I don't know what the deal is with tack being used here.

318

There's probably a reason.

319

I probably should have looked this up ahead of time, but flat as a tack.

320

I think it's mainly used because it rhymes.

321

Tacks don't tend to be flat.

322

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.

323

It's probably talking about the top as opposed to the sharp point on it.

324

Jamie commented, watching a few surfers floating around aimlessly.

325

So, this would be like they're floating in the water and they don't have a purpose.

326

There's no waves to come, so it's aimless.

327

There's no aim for them, right?

328

They're doing that aimlessly.

329

Not much action today.

330

Action here would mean like a lot of things going on.

331

There's not much surf in this case there's not much action.

332

You could go to the city hoping that a lot of stuff is going on.

333

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.

334

So, there's not much going on, right?

335

There's not much happening.

336

Mark, who had brought his surfboard, sighed in disappointment.

337

I was hoping to catch some waves, but it's not happening.

338

So, we'll break down the first bit there.

339

So, Mark, He brought his surfboard along to the beach.

340

He sighed in disappointment like, oh, this is, you know, this sucks.

341

This is lame.

342

There's no waves.

343

I was hoping to catch some waves.

344

Another really cool expression we use to mean use a surfboard, to go body surfing, to use a bodyboard,

345

whatever it is, to interact with surf waves, catch them, as in get on them and ride those waves, right?

346

So, catch some waves, to surf some waves.

347

But it's not happening.

348

Look at all the shark biscuits out there with nothing to do.

349

He decided to leave the surfboard on the sand and join them for a swim instead.

350

So, shark biscuits I wanted to include here.

351

This is an interesting Aussie slang term

352

that can be used to mean a beginner who is surfing and I think it's probably fine to use it for surfers,

353

people bodyboarding, body surfing, people interacting with surf, with waves, right?

354

They're shark biscuits.

355

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.

356

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,

357

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.

358

After cooling off in the water, they returned to their towels and cracked open the esky to grab some cold drinks.

359

So, they cooled off in the water.

360

We've used another phrasal verb here as opposed to warm up.

361

Those are the sort of two opposites or heat up.

362

So, cool down, warm up, heat up, down and up.

363

You'll notice those being used there.

364

They returned to their towels and cracked open the esky to grab some cold drinks.

365

Crack.

366

We can use this as sort of like informal Australian slang to mean to open something, to crack something open.

367

It's similar to things like to grab something, to chuck something, to crack something open.

368

We use that quite a lot.

369

So, learn those types of phrases.

370

It's informal, but it sounds a lot more natural as opposed to saying something like, they opened up the esky, you know.

371

You could do that, but crack something open is pretty good.

372

You can use it for drinks too.

373

You might grab a beer and crack it open.

374

What else could could you crack open?

375

There's a lot of things you could crack open, I think.

376

You know, a container.

377

Yeah.

378

Well, I guess an Esky is a container.

379

So, Jamie stretched out and sighed contentedly.

380

He sighed contentedly.

381

Don't forget that adverb.

382

You know, he's feeling good.

383

He's sighing, but he's feeling good.

384

Sort of like relaxation.

385

I could do this all day.

386

Guess I'm turning into a beach bum.

387

So, a beach bum here.

388

Bum can be used many different ways.

389

Obviously, you've got your bum on your body.

390

You know, I'm sitting on my bum at the moment.

391

But a beach bum would usually be someone who just hangs around the beach all the time, right?

392

A beach bum.

393

We use that a lot.

394

Mark laughed.

395

Mate, you already are.

396

You know, you're already a beach bum.

397

He lay back, again, probably sighing, and added, still, I'm stoked we made it here.

398

Nothing beats a sunny day at the beach." So, there's a few things here.

399

Still, I'm stoked.

400

I'm excited.

401

I'm really happy.

402

I'm chuffed.

403

You know, these are slang terms.

404

I think they're used by Americans as well, but Australians definitely use things like stoked, probably because we learn it from them,

405

assuming it's not ours, and chuffed to mean very happy, you know, excited.

406

I'm stoked.

407

I'm chuffed.

408

I'm stoked.

409

We made it here.

410

If you make it somewhere, it's that you successfully got to that place.

411

You successfully arrived.

412

So, someone might make it to your party.

413

Oh, we made it on time.

414

I thought we were going to be late, but we made it to the party and we made it on time.

415

So, it's sort of a synonym for arrive somewhere.

416

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.

417

So, to take a tumble, another good expression here, to take a tumble.

418

It sounds weird, right?

419

It's sort of like you just took it and then what?

420

You just ran off with it?

421

No. To take a tumble is to fall over.

422

The idea being you tumble over, right?

423

You fall and I guess you've taken yourself and thrown yourself into a tumble, but yes.

424

I don't know why we use take here as opposed to like go on a tumble, do a tumble.

425

It's just the expression to take a tumble.

426

Oh man, he took a tumble.

427

Fell down the stairs and took a tumble.

428

So, it's kind of like fall down, but sort of rolling and probably worse than just fall over or trip over, right?

429

To take a tumble.

430

You could also use to wipe out, especially when talking about catching waves.

431

So, in the case here, Lily was surfing on a small wave.

432

When you fall off a surfboard or you effectively crash while surfing a wave, that is to wipe out, right?

433

To wipe out.

434

She quickly popped up laughing.

435

So, to pop up would be like to quickly come up, right, so she could pop up.

436

She could pop up out of the water.

437

She quickly popped up laughing.

438

Well, that wasn't graceful, but no worries, she said, flicking the water from her hair.

439

Yeah, I can't really do that on camera.

440

It's a very quick flick if I have water in my hair.

441

My hair doesn't hold much water, to be honest. So, no worries.

442

We can use this in Australian English to mean, ah, it's not a problem, right?

443

Ah, don't stress.

444

Ah, well, you know, no worries, no dramas.

445

You can use both of those.

446

No worries, no dramas, you know.

447

So, she's saying, ah, it's not a big deal, you know.

448

Okay.

449

After a while, they decided to head back to the car.

450

So, to head somewhere, this is to go somewhere, to go in a certain direction, to head back to the car.

451

They came from the car.

452

Now, they're heading back to the car.

453

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.

454

We're bogged, Jamie groaned, shaking his head.

455

Knew I shouldn't have parked on the sand.

456

Bogged.

457

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?

458

Or the vehicle can't move.

459

It can be a truck, can be whatever you want.

460

If it's got wheels, typically it's not going to be something like a bike

461

or a scooter because you can probably just pull that out of the mud.

462

I guess, you know, if it did get stuck, you could say it's bogged.

463

But usually it's going to be some kind of motorized vehicle like a car.

464

So, a four -wheel drive might be driving up a four -wheel drive track.

465

It's black, 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.

466

Maybe you've got to push it, you've got to put sticks under the tires and lever it up.

467

Maybe you've got to use a winch

468

or a strap on someone else's car to get you out of your situation being bogged.

469

And then something interesting to mention here, knew I shouldn't have parked on the sand.

470

What's happened there at the start of this phrase?

471

We've got some, I think it's elision, elision or ellipsis.

472

It's one of those two where the pronoun is missing.

473

I knew I shouldn't have parked on the sand.

474

Now, when learning English, you're probably taught quite often that you need to always be using pronouns.

475

You can't like Spanish and Portuguese, just drop the pronoun and use the verb

476

because conjugation allows you to know which pronoun should have been in front of that verb.

477

That was something that was a pain in the ass to get my head around when I was learning French.

478

Not French, but Portuguese, Portuguese and Spanish.

479

But funnily enough, in spoken English, we do this all the time when it's obvious, especially when you're speaking to someone, right?

480

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,

481

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?

482

Because it's obvious, you know, and in this case, knew I shouldn't have parked on the sand.

483

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.

484

It's obvious that he's talking about himself.

485

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.

486

So, it happens quite a lot.

487

With some help from a friendly passerby, they finally managed to get the car free.

488

Let's do that first.

489

So, a friendly passerby, a passerby is someone who is passing by.

490

So, we've turned, I guess, a phrasal verb to pass by.

491

We've turned that into a noun, a passerby.

492

I wonder why we didn't call it a passbyer, right, or a passerbyer.

493

It's interesting how they end up deciding to turn phrasal verbs into nouns.

494

A passerby by.

495

So, a passerby, a friendly passerby is someone passing by who is friendly, obviously.

496

Then they finally managed to get the car free.

497

So, they got the car free of its trap, right, of the thing that had it caught.

498

It was freed.

499

They got it free.

500

As they packed their gear and prepared to leave, Jamie took one last look at the ocean and smiled.

501

So, you take a look, don't forget, you take a look.

502

You can also have a look, you can use both.

503

He had a look at the beach.

504

He took a look at the beach.

505

You know what, he said grinning.

506

Despite getting bogged and missing the waves, that was a great day.

507

Fair dinkum.

508

I wouldn't trade it for anything.

509

So, fair dinkum.

510

This can be used in a few different ways in Australian English.

511

You could use it when talking about someone being authentic.

512

He's fair dinkum.

513

He's authentic.

514

He's serious.

515

He's being truthful.

516

You can use it when checking if someone is being truthful.

517

Fair dinkum?

518

Like, are you serious?

519

Are you telling me the truth?

520

Is that true?

521

Fair dinkum?

522

And here, it's kind of like he's, it's kind of like an exclamation, I guess.

523

He's kind of like, you know, it's sort of like, wow, you know, wow, I wouldn't trade this for the world.

524

Like, fair dinkum, like in all seriousness, like truthfully, I wouldn't trade this for the world.

525

Fair dinkum.

526

So, he's using it in that sense.

527

His friends nodded in agreement.

528

Same time next weekend?

529

Mark asked.

530

So, here, again, we've kind of shortened the sentence a great deal because context is obvious.

531

Do you want to do this the same time next weekend?

532

Shall we do this the same time next weekend?

533

So, we quite often do that in English.

534

We just shorten everything down in spoken English to make it as fast as possible.

535

Same time next weekend?

536

So, do you want to do this again next weekend at the same time.

537

Absolutely, Lily replied.

538

And Jamie, don't forget your budgie smugglers next time.

539

So, budgie smugglers.

540

I wonder if you guys have heard this colourful Australian slang term.

541

It is your bathers, your togs, your cozies, your speedos, your swimmers that are like underwear for men, budgie smugglers.

542

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,

543

because that's what things look like.

544

Okay.

545

I'm not going to get too descriptive.

546

we'll keep it g -rated but that's the joke right budgie smugglers

547

and this it's one of those things where it is kind of grotesque in how it's describing something you know

548

when you really think about it

549

but it's used all the time it's used in the media

550

it's used you know i could talk to my kids bring

551

your budgie smuggler they would have no idea in terms of

552

what i was actually alluding to they would know what i meant get your swimmers

553

but they wouldn't you'd have to yeah i I don't know, you get to teenage years and then you're like, oh, that's what it means.

554

They all laughed as they drove off, ready to plan their next beach adventure.

555

All right, guys.

556

So, I'm going to play the story for you one more time.

557

Hopefully, this time now you have better listening comprehension.

558

You will understand a lot more of the vocab that's used here.

559

So, listen out for that.

560

Keep an eye out for it.

561

And don't forget to grab the free worksheet today as well.

562

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.

563

You will get the glossary with all of the vocabulary, a definition, and an example phrase of it being used.

564

And then right at the bottom, you will also have a quiz

565

that will obviously quiz you on the 20 different pieces of vocab and expressions that are in today's story.

566

So, again, the link is in the description.

567

It was a scorching day, Saturday morning, and Jamie and his friends, Lily and Mark, were itching to get outside.

568

It's too nice to stay home.

569

Let's hit the beach, Jamie called to his friends.

570

They packed their bathers, towels, and loaded the esky with food and drinks before driving off to the beach.

571

By noon, they arrived at the coast.

572

The sun was blazing, and the beach was chockers with people.

573

but they managed to find a spot near the water and parked the car on the sand.

574

Blimey, it's packed, Jamie said, looking around.

575

Everyone's out to catch some rays today.

576

Lily, already wearing her sunnies, grinned as she took them off.

577

You can catch rays later, she said.

578

Let's go for a dip first.

579

It's way too hot to just sit here.

580

As they stripped down to their bathers, Jamie suddenly realised he'd forgotten his.

581

Damn it, I've only got my jocks.

582

Mark chuckled.

583

Well, that'll have to do.

584

Just make sure you don't lose them in the surf or you're on your own.

585

Lily laughed as she ran down to the water.

586

If that happens, at least it'll scare the sharks away, Jamie.

587

The water was perfect, but the surf wasn't doing much.

588

Looks like the water's flat as a tack, Jamie commented, watching a few surfers floating around aimlessly.

589

Not much action today.

590

Mark, who had brought his surfboard, sighed in disappointment.

591

I was hoping to catch some waves, but it's not happening.

592

Look at all the shark biscuits out there with nothing to do.

593

He decided to leave the surfboard on the sand and join them for a swim instead.

594

After cooling off in the water, they returned to their towels and cracked open the esky to grab some cold drinks.

595

Jamie stretched out and sighed contentedly.

596

I could do this all day.

597

Guess I'm turning into a beach bum.

598

Mark laughed.

599

Mate, you already are.

600

He lay back and added, Still, I'm stoked we made it out here.

601

Nothing beats a sunny day at the beach.

602

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.

603

She quickly popped up laughing.

604

Well, that wasn't graceful, but no worries, she said, flicking the water from her hair.

605

After a while, they decided to head back to the car, but when they reached it, they realised they were stuck.

606

We're bogged, Jamie groaned, shaking his head.

607

Knew I shouldn't have parked on the sand.

608

With some help from a friendly passerby, they finally managed to get the car free.

609

As they packed up their gear and prepared to leave, Jamie took one last look at the ocean and smiled.

610

"'You know what?' he said, grinning.

611

Despite getting bogged and missing the waves, that was a great day.

612

Fair dinkum.

613

I wouldn't trade it for anything.

614

His friends nodded in agreement.

615

Same time next weekend?

616

Mark asked.

617

Absolutely, Lily replied.

618

And Jamie, don't forget your budgie smugglers next time.

619

They all laughed as they drove off, ready to plan their next beach adventure.

620

Okay, so that's it for today, guys.

621

I really hope you enjoyed this episode.

622

Thank you so much for joining me.

623

Let me know if you have a suggestion for a future episode, so leave it as a comment below and I will see what I can do.

624

You guys seem to always have really good ideas.

625

And besides that, I hope you have a ripper of a week and I'll see you next time.

626

Ta -rao!

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing Practice: Day at the Beach | Learn Australian English with a Short Story - Learn English Speaking with Video

Why Practice Speaking with This Beach Story Video?

Grammar & Expressions in Context

Common Pronunciation Traps

What is the Shadowing Technique?