Learn Australian English in this episode of the Aussie English Podcast where we celebrate the 500th episode of the podcast with special student guests!

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AE 500 – Thank You! Here’s to 500 More!

Wow. Episode 500, guys! That is incredible! And that went so fast! I remember the first day sitting down in the park, doing episode number one where I was talking about me, what I had planned, what I do, who I am all of that. I remember sitting on a log in a park in Melbourne.

G’day, guys! Welcome to the very first Aussie English Podcast. My name is Peter Smissen, I’m a 28-year-old PhD student from Melbourne.

Anyway, that is zoomed by. Today I have a very special episode for you, guys. I am looking so forward to showing you Kel, chatting with her a bit about how we met and then showing you some of the members in the Aussie English Classroom and their English, ok? Where they’re from. Why they’re learning English so, stick around for that and at the very end there is a special deal if you would like to sign up to the Aussie English Classroom for two months for a special price, but you’re going to have to stick around if you want to hear about that. Anyway, guys, let’s get into it!

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Pete: Why are you here, Kel?

Kel: I don’t know, you made me come

Pete: She was sleeping and I was like ‘come, come, come! Make a video, make a video with me!’ Alright, guys, so I wanted to do this for episode 500 and I’m glad that I can have Kel here. and I guess, first and foremost, I wanted to say thank you to all of you, guys, because, you know, you’ve been hanging with it, you’ve been listening to the podcast, you’ve been on YouTube, Instagram, all of that stuff, supporting the podcast in the classroom, everything related to Aussie English enough that I can keep going.

Pete: For the last… two and a half, three years now. Been battling it out and it even got me this one, right? Aussie English got me this one. Do you wanna tell them that story? We might as well share that, this is a special episode. So we’ll tell you some stuff about us, some news about us and then I have a bunch of videos that I got from Aussie English classroom members. I ask them to specifically put together a video answering a few questions about who they are, where they’re from, why they’re learning English and I just wanted you guys to see that. You know, there are lots and lots of people listening to the podcast, probably experiencing the same problems as you, having the same worries as you, so yeah that’ll be at the end, but first…

Pete: Kel, how did we meet? She hunted me down.

Kel: No, I did not.

Pete: She came, she was chasing me down.

Kel: No, you always say that!

Pete: She was on Instagram, she saw that she was like ‘I like this guy, I want this guy, this is my husband’.

Kel: No, I was studying English and I found your podcast.

Pete: You did.

Kel: It was really random. Like, one night I was like I can’t sleep. So, you know, let’s keep studying and I found Aussie English Podcast and I was like oh, that’s really nice’, and he mentioned that he had a YouTube channel. I was like I’ll check it out tomorrow.

Pete: And that I was single.

Kel: No, you didn’t.

Kel: So next day I was on Youtube and I found his channel. I just like… just left a comment like ”what you do is really nice, I like your job” you know, just being friendly and I wasn’t expecting him to reply to me because, you know, those famous people online they never never…

Pete: Que isso? What is this? Famous? I’m not Johnny Depp yet.

Kel: I’m glad you’re not. So, he did, he replied to me and he was really friendly, saying where are you from and things like that. So we got talking and…

Pete: I found you’re from Brazil and obviously I was learning Portuguese at least, to a limited extent back then and I think it’s one of those things, a single male and you are learning Portuguese and so you’ve got to give yourself at the time I was like, you know, meet as many women as you can wherever, don’t assume anything, you’re not going to find the one if you don’t go out of your way to constantly meet people.

Kel: So, you were telling that ‘help me learn Portuguese’ to a lot of Brazilians?

Pete: I said… that’s it. that’s it.

Pete: But I saw that and I was like okay if you want to, you know, chat a bit about learning Portuguese and learning English like just talk to me on Instagram and I said that to her thinking she’s not going to add me on Instagram or talk to me, she’ll be like oh this guy’s a weirdo, but you sent me a message and we just clicked, really well I guess ,pretty quickly I don’t know, she has a pretty wicked sense of humour. You probably don’t get to see it on the videos much and you probably don’t get to see too much of my sense of humour. Oh well, a little bit, but it’s tame, it’s very tame, guys. I am… I have a bad sense of humour.

Kel: So, yeah I remember when I replied to you on Instagram it was just like… No, the first time, I tried to start the conversation like hey, how are you doing? He seemed…he didn’t really seem interested. He was like… ‘yeah’.

Pete: I was probably there like don’t seem too interested, don’t seem too interested.

Kel: And then the next time you replied to me he was something about a fish, I was just so confused. Like, I don’t remember what you’re saying, it was about a fish and I was like I really need improve my English because this guy is talking…

Pete: Ohh the Brazilian fish, there’s a little fish in Brazil that if you go into the river it can swim up your penis or into your vagina, I was like have you heard about that? It’s crazy!

Kel: I’m like…wow.

Kel: We just, you know, became friends.

Pete: And you happen to be coming to Melbourne. You ended up coming down to Melbourne. We got along and the rest is history.

Kel: That’s it. And so, I know, crazy things. These are all the things that Aussie English has given me, right? I’ve got a whole bunch of students who are about to show you videos. I met Kel we are now in… I don’t know, what is it? Three weeks from now we’re getting married. The ring has arrived and we were more worried about these and thought we would just put them on because… they are expensive, guys. Kel walked into the shop and was like give me the cheapest ones you’ve got. And she’s pretty much like fifteen hundred dollars.

Kel: I think she wanted to show us, you know, the ones with rocks and stuff. And I’m like… just don’t even got there.

Pete: We’re not interested in putting a lot of money into this tiny little thing. It’s more what it means than what it is, I guess. So, that’s crazy. Looking back on it for me, at least, it’s like whaaat?! We’re getting married after a year and a bit and Kel has other news as well that I’ve been trying to…bite my tongue and not say anything.

Kel: What is that?

Pete: It’s about the size of a blueberry at the moment.

Kel: It’s a baby!

Pete: Kel is pregnant, guys, Kel is pregnant! Kel’s got a little belly, I’ll bring it forward a bit. No, she’s got nothing. It’s 100 percent small normal.

Kel: It’s 100 percent food right now.

Pete: So, you’re only about seven weeks pregnant, seven weeks pregnant Kel. And that blows my mind. I keep having these moments where I’m like what the hell? I’m going to be a dad in June.

Kel: And that makes me worried because sometimes he’s like…he’s looking at the ring like…

Pete: That just because I’m getting used to it, it’s not because I’m thinking about it again, I’m not second guessing it!

Kel: Are you sure you want to do it?

Pete: No, no, no, no. But yeah, that’s crazy! That’s what English has brought me, guys. You guys, obviously Kel, have completely changed my life. The baby is going to change my life. It’s just crazy where you end up, you know, like three years ago I was studying my PhD wanting to become a scientist and graduated that and just haven’t touched it since and have been doing this full time, full time.

Pete: We’ve gone to Canberra, Kel had a job there, we’ve come back from Canberra, we’ve had a lot of adventures!

Kel: Like, just…made so many enemies.

Pete: And friends.

Kel: And friends, a bunch of friends. Has been a rollercoaster.

Pete: It has been a rollercoaster, exactly, but it’s been well worth it. Anyways, guys, hopefully we’ll tell you more about marriage and pregnancy in the near future and I’m glad that Kel’s on the videos and interested in being involved a bit more now so… That would be really fun, but yea, big thank you. Thank you so much, guys!

Kel: Thank you so much.

Pete: And we just had 10,000 people on Instagram. How crazy is that? Kel’s been on Instagram posting things for me as well, getting involved. It’s all her. She got us over 10,000.

Kel: No, it’s your dance.

Pete: It’s my dance!

Pete: Anyway, I’m going to try and keep it up, guys, I’m going to keep trying to improve, keep trying to deliver good English resources to you. And yeah, I guess I will see you soon and leave you now with all the videos from…I don’t know how many people, hopefully more than 15 or so. So, I don’t know how long this is going to be. People are still sending me videos, but we’ll see how it goes. I hope you enjoy it and I will see you in the next 500 episodes! See you guys!

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G’day, guys. How are you going? My name’s Prameshwor. You can call me Promise. I’ve been learning English for a few years. And I met the Aussie English Classroom on 25th of July of this year, 2018. So, I think it’s been approximately three months, ok guys? One of the main reasons of learning English, and particularly Aussie English, is to enhance my listening comprehension. My pronunciation, word stress, intonation, all from the scratch! I think speaking well allows me to make a bunch of friends from all over the world, ok? It will uplift my career as I always wanted to work in a very good reputable organization. As a customer service officer. So, thanks a lot, Pete. It all the credit goes to you. This is a wonderful platform that you have been providing to us. Alright? So, have a ripper of a day. See ya!

Good day, guys. This is Mona and I want to talk about what Pete suggested. Okay, now I am from Egypt. I am old. I’ve been learning English for quite some time, but the way I learned English is just in writing at a rate that I think is not that bad, it’s ok. But I just found out that I just have an issue with the book and pronunciation so, actually Pete thank you very much, Pete, I really learned a lot, a lot. I mean, vocab and culture and there are things that, you know, I wouldn’t know about. I mean, so thank you very much and I really enjoy being with you, guys. I mean in the Facebook. Thank you! ok, bye!

G’day, Pete! How is it going down there? My name is Duaa I’m a mechanical engineer from Jordan. I’ve been studying English since I was five. It’s a mandatory language to be learned here in Jordan. In addition to that it’s the official communication language for engineers and I deal with many foreign engineers from many nationalities. I enjoy your posts and I enjoy the expressions you always come up with, especially in the information you keep giving us about the culture in Australia and other things. Thank you.!

Hey guys! my name is Emma and I’m from China. I started to learn English since junior high, which is like 20 years ago. Two years ago, I came to Australia to do my PhD. At that time, I find the Aussie English Podcast. So, I really love it. So, I start to learn Australia English from Peter. For me, English is really important for my academic career. I wanted to present or communicate well with my colleagues or peers at daily life or even any conferences. And besides that, I really enjoyed living in Melbourne so I wanted to make more friends from a different culture background and English can help me to do all these things.

Hello everyone! This is Hetal here. I’m from India and I’ve been learning English for the last five or six months and It is an amazing experience to be with the Aussie English Classroom and having amazing videos and podcast every time. And my dream is to explore the world. Thanks so much for watching this video!

Hi everyone. How you going? This is Thomas Di. I grew up in a small city in the north east of China. I lived in Beijing for 18 years before I moved to Perth four years ago with my wife. We really enjoy the life here. I joined the Aussie English Classroom I think in May this year. I really benefit a lot from the class because I’ve learned so much expressions, vocabulary and lot of things. Sometimes, you know, after I a phrasal verb or a expression the next day I can hear someone using it in the office. So, you know, I’m so excited! So, in terms of the purpose of learning English originally so, I learned it. You know, you have no choice because you need to get good marks in the school so, you can get into a good university in China, but it’s mainly just for the exam itself. But after I moved to Australia I realised that it is all about communication. So, you need to use English. You know, you make mistakes, but there’s so much to experience. So, in the Aussie English Classroom I found that everyone is brave. We help each other and we share our experience which is quite helpful to each remember. So, if someone says English is a tool, but for me because it’s more than that, it’s a window. So, you can see the world through it. You can communicate with almost everyone in the world even to someone, you know, English is not their native language. So, yeah for the 500 episode, I would say thank you, Pete, and all the best the whip or the Aussie English Classroom. See you later, cheers!

Hi, guys! Hi Pete! I’m Pasquale from Italy. I’m 45 years old and I have been learning English for more or less three years. I am the moderator of Canguru English official, we Christian Saunders and I’m so glad to be part of this amazing work with you, Pete, which is the Aussie English. English is changing my life completely. I love this amazing language and it helps me a lot, ok? Bye for now and see you soon!

Hi, how are you? This is Daniel Jung and I’m from South Korea. I have been learning English for around 10 years, though, but I still feel that I need to improve my English. Maybe because I couldn’t find a way to improve my English effectively, but luckily, I found Pete and have been picking up fair dinkum Aussie English and learning Australian culture as well, obviously, I’m really enjoying them. Speaking English for me it’s like communicating with bigger world so, I can communicate with more people and feel and learn much more things. Anyway, I really appreciate for Pete to make this kind of chance for us. Thank you!

Hey guys! This video is for answering Pete’s questions. I’m Man and I’m from Hong Kong. I’m just join Aussie English for three months. Why I need to learn English? Because English is international language. If I know more about English I can…I can go travel around the world, I can communicate with other people and I can meet different people in the world. What will speaking English allow you to do? If I have a good English, fluent English, I can easily find a better job and I can start master program or maybe I can move back to Australia. I love Australia. A few years ago, I have been to Australia before. I really love Australia culture, the food and people, I love it there, yes. I hope you guys enjoy Aussie English. Thank you.

Hi, guys! How’s it going? My name is Shinichi, I’m from Japan and I’ve been learning Australian English nearly for four years. I’d love to live in this country because I love this country Australia. It’s pretty good, isn’t it? I love also to communicate with people all over the world. That’s why I’ve been learning English. Cheers!

My name is Fatimah, I’m from Malaysia. I joined Aussie English around 10 months, almost a year, I think, and I love learning many languages one of them is English and I find this. Interesting online class, which is Aussie English Classroom and I learn a lot from this. And basically, with language you can expand your knowledge, you can learn many things, you can communicate with may people. That’s it. Thank you!

Hi, everyone! This is Vivian. I’m from Hong Kong. I also live in Singapore for more than 10 years. Currently I live in Melbourne. I have been learning English since I was nine until now more than 40 years. Why I learn English? First of all, I like English very much. Secondly, I know English is the tool to connect to the rest of the world. It broadens my horizon to whatever knowledge that I’m interested in. Like currently, we’re building a studio at my backyard. I have done a lot of researchers through the Internet. It helps a lot during the whole building process. If I don’t know English, we don’t know how I can complete the whole project smoothly and successfully. My aim now is to progress from an intermediate level to advanced level. Cheers!

Friends, my name is Fan Zhang and I’m from China. I started to learn English about 30 years ago when I was a middle school student. Two years ago, I started to learn English with the Aussie English Podcast. So, about two months ago I started to learn English with the old English Classroom. The reason why I keep learning English is that English is the most widely used the language of the world today and also the people, most people that represent the frontier of the development of science and technology are written in English so, speaking English better can help me enjoy a more comfortable life in Australia and also help my career development in Australia. Currently I am working and leaving Australia. So, join us, join the Aussie English Classroom. This is the most efficient way to improve our English. Thank you!

Hi, everyone! My name is Alex. I am from Russia. I have been intensively learning English for the last four years. I subscribed to Aussie English on YouTube in May, 2016, and later I joined the Aussie English Classroom and I work there for this time. I am learning English in order to pass English exams and to get a better job. Speaking English will get me a lot of opportunities to live and to work in better conditions.

Hi! My name is Aykhan and I’m from Baku Azerbaijan. I’ve been taught English by my aunt and this was happened roughly in 1996 when I was at first form, but after graduating from the University in 2011 I had a huge break in my English lessons. So, that’s a period when I forgot a lot of things which I have learnt before. But last year, I have decided to become an Aussie English Classroom member, and there are two causes why I decided to do it. The first thing is that I want to migrate to Australia and I want to learn Australian English and improve my common English as well. And I need to pass PTE academic exam and Aussie English Classroom help me in it a lot. So, the second cause why I became a member of the Aussie English Classroom is that I just like this language and I want to live in the English spoken country. So, the English classroom is the best way where you can improve your English. That’s all for me. Sorry for my voice. I am under the weather and I wish you good luck!

Hello, everybody. Hello Pete. Hello Kel! Hi, guys! I hope you are all doing well. My name is Rocio. Most of you already know me. I am from Venezuela are in South America and first of all I want to congratulate Pete on reaching 500 episodes and just say that you are an amazing, mate! I’m really enjoying Aussie English and I wish you all the best in the future. So, I guess they started learning English when I was in high school, but honestly, I learned English in a really basic level. I remember that I was even able to do well in testes, in the way like filling in the blanks or first conditional, second conditional. I just learn how the pattern work and I was able to fill in the blanks and do well in my test without even knowing any of the words in the sentences. So, that’s how bad I was in high school and even at uni. So, then many, many years down the track I was working for IBM in Venezuela. I missed a great opportunity to get a promotion because I wasn’t able to speak English. I felt very sad, but I thought it was very late for me to start learning a new language. A few years passed by and I was in a different company.

I was at Citibank and one day you realise that when I got a promotion as well and I was in a situation where I needed to speak English because I have a lot of stakeholders that I needed to liaise with. So, I was able to communicate with them by e-mail, but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t doing a very good job because I needed to speak to them and, you know, speak about things and get people engaged and things like that. So, there was one day that I just decided ah that’s it, I need to get better in English and I talked to my boss and we decided that when I was able to take out a long leave and I went to United States and I did an immersion course in there. So, I went to Chicago for12 weeks, three months and I went there and I loved there, I think that was the point when I started really loving and really liking English. I felt so so good because I was alone and I didn’t speak Spanish for three months so, I was so, so happy! I was able to communicate. I was able to get the things done, you know, buy things in the supermarket and get around the city by myself. So, I felt that I really… that was a reality, I was able to speak English so, I went back to Venezuela after those three months and we had a bad political and economic situation in that. So, my husband and I decided to come to Australia mainly because we wanted to do a masters because they wanted to upgrade my skills. So, we came to Australia hoping that the situation in Venezuela got better in those three years that I was doing my masters and my husband was able to work full time and I was able to work part time as well. So, that was a great benefit. So, you know, I did my Masters and then the situation there back in Venezuela didn’t improve a little bit so, we decided just to stay in here and yeah that’s why I’m still here.

I discovered Aussie English a bit over a year ago now, and when I saw how Pete was able to explain things and to give us tips about Aussie culture, about how people say these things or how people really think, I really, really love it. It was mind blowing for me because that was what I really was looking for because I learnt English in an American way, let’s say. So, I was always in doubt if these expressions or these were actually used in Australia or not or is this English, American English, or is British English.

So, Pete has been able to reassure for me how things are in Australia and that the bar that you really love the most about Aussie English. Apart from that, I have learned tons of new expressions and new vocabulary and more so I have had a lot of fun doing this!

So, yeah, I think the last question was about what will I be able to do if I had a better English and I think, in my case, because I’m already here in Australia and I’m already working in a company full-time for me if I’m able to speak more fluent English, better English, I will be able to reach higher positions in the company and I will also engage a lot of… more in conversations and make decision, decision making situations. So, yeah that’s my journey with English. Pete, please, please, please! Keep doing this because this is really awesome. You are the only Aussie guy out there who is teaching English in this level that you are doing it. So, please keep going and I just can’t wait to see how you have prepared for us for the next 500 more episodes, I guess. So, thanks so much, Pete and peace out!

Hello, mate! My name is Patrick. I’m a French Brazilian since 1974 living in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The name of the state is Minas Gerais. It means mining and agricultural around mining areas. I learn American English for research activities and now, since a month ago, Aussie English for a new project regarding common goals management and aborigines’ point of view, cultural relevance for social management of mining in the future.

Hey there. My name’s Paula. I’m from Colombia and I’ve been learning English with the Aussie English Classroom for around 7 months. I’m learning English because this is a significantly important requirement in my country if you want to get a better job, but I’m also learning because I really, really enjoy travelling. So, I think English is useful when you want to get to know about many different people and cultures. That’s it. Bye!

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That was absolutely incredible, I’m so proud of you, guys! I hadn’t actually watched any of those videos until I had gotten around to editing it, which I am currently doing and so I’ve just gone through. I’ve just edited everything I’m making this outro, but yeah, I want to say that I’m really impressed with you, guys, and to see you guys improve working so hard every week in the Aussie English Classroom as well as all those others that are listening to the podcast, that are commenting on YouTube, that are engaging with the material and working really hard. It is not easy, guys! It is not easy and yeah just know that I am really, really impressed and I’m really, really proud of each and every one of you.

So, thank you so much, guys. Thank you for making this possible. Thank you who’s watching right now. Thank you very much! I want to let you know that if you would like to support the podcast, you can go to my Patron page and you can also make donations via PayPal if you want to do one-off donations. The links will be in the transcript or they’ll be below on this video on YouTube. If you would like the transcripts for the podcast as well as the MP3s and you want to support the podcast you can go to theaussieenglishpodcast.com, you can sign up there and for the price of a coffee per month you will get access to all of the transcripts, all of the MP3s for every episode, ok?

And then on top of that if you’re interested in signing up to the Aussie English Classroom, where I put up weekly courses designed to help you improve your listening, your speaking, your writing and your reading in English, but with strong, strong, strong emphasis on speaking and primarily on Australian English then go to theaussieenglishclassroom.com and I’ve got a special deal for you, guys! To celebrate this episode, for the next week, whenever this video is uploaded for the seven days after that, you can use the coupon code ‘episode500’ to get two months for the price of half a usual month, ok? So, instead of the first two months being about 40 dollars, you’ll get two months for 20 dollars, ok?

So, use the coupon EPISODE500. That is EPISODE500, a single word. EPISODE500. Go to theaussieenglishclassroom.com, use that coupon and you’ll get two months for $20 bucks.

That is like $2.50 a week, guys! That’s half a coffee a week to get in there, use all the materials, get into the Aussie English classroom Facebook group, meet the guys that you have just seen in this video or heard in this episode and practice your English with them and with me. So, I’m looking so forward to the future of Aussie English and to, hopefully, seeing you in the Aussie English classroom, guys.

Thank you so much for sticking with me.

I’ll see you soon! Peace out!