Big English Expressions Academy Course

Big English Expressions Academy Course is your shortcut to sounding more natural, confident, and fluent in real English conversations — especially in Australia. This course covers ~100 of the most common, useful, and genuinely cool English idioms and expressions that native speakers actually use every day. If you've ever watched a movie, listened to Australians chatting in a café, or heard expressions that made absolutely no sense to you, this course is designed to fix that.

Every lesson includes video, audio, and written materials from Pete, helping you learn the expressions from multiple angles and remember them long-term. Instead of memorising dry vocabulary lists, you'll hear how these expressions are used naturally in conversations, stories, jokes, and real-life situations. The combination of listening, reading, and repetition makes the language stick in your brain permanently.

By the end of the course, you'll stop translating everything in your head and start understanding English the way native speakers actually use it. You'll catch expressions in TV shows, podcasts, YouTube videos, cafés, workplaces, and everyday conversations without feeling lost. This is the kind of English that textbooks usually ignore — but real people use constantly.

How each expression works

Every expression gets its own set of lessons, so you meet it from several directions before moving on:

• Listen & Read — the main lesson, where the expression appears in a full conversation or story with the transcript alongside.
• Imitation or Substitution Exercise — you repeat and adapt the phrasing until it comes out naturally.
• Aussie Slang — the local vocabulary that turned up along the way.
• Pronunciation — the specific sounds in this expression that are worth drilling.
• Connected Speech — how the words run together when it's said at full speed.
• Grammar — whatever structure the expression sits inside, explained properly.
• Speaking Challenge — your turn to use it.

What you'll learn

Expressions you'll meet include to cut someone some slack, to hit the nail on the head, a blessing in disguise, when push comes to shove, to get cold feet, water under the bridge, to open a can of worms and to burn the candle at both ends — alongside the properly Australian ones: to have a few roos loose in the top paddock, to have Buckley's chance, like a stunned mullet, to spit the dummy, not worth a zack and to take the piss.

How to use the course

One expression at a time, and finish the whole set before moving on — the speaking challenge is what turns an expression you recognise into one you can actually use. The expressions are independent, so browse the list and start with whichever one you've been hearing and not understanding.