In today’s episode of Aussie English I teach you guys how to use the expression “To Go Into Something”.

Expression: To Go Into Something

G’day guys. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. I wonder if you guys have noticed, I’ve been able to get um… a microphone, a new microphone, and use that. So, hopefully the audio quality is a little bit better now. So, if you think that’s the case or isn’t the case let me know what you think on Facebook. Send me a message and tell me whether or not you like the audio now. Hopefully it’s improved.

Um… today’s another expression episode, and the expression today is going to be “To go into something”, “To go into something”. And the definition of the expression “To go into something” means to talk about, to mention, to discuss. It’s usually an uncomfortable topic or a very difficult to explain topic that will require a lot more time to… to explain. So, you’ll often hear this followed by the word “Detail” or “The details”. So, you might hear “To go into detail about something”, you know, “Can you go into detail about where you’ve been?”, or you might hear, “Can you go into the details about something or someone or, yeah, an event that’s happened”. “Go into the details. Can you talk about the details?”

So, like all previous expression episodes I’ll go through some examples to give you guys an idea of when and how you would use the expression “To go into [something]”.

Ah, number one, okay, so there’s a murder and the investigators who are looking at the case and trying to solve the murder case, they’re trying to work out who committed the crime. They’re at the crime scene, they’ve seen the aftermath or the aftermath [**two different pronunciations], you can say, of what’s happened there. So, the dead body, they’ve seen blood everywhere, they’ve found the weapon, but they still don’t have the murderer. So, they’ve been and seen the scene, they’ve seen the victim, it’s been horrible, grim, violent, and they get interviewed later on that night when they’re going to be on the news. They get interviewed by the press at a press conference, and the investigator could refuse to go into the gory details at the press conference. So, often you’ll have um… journalists obviously asking quite a few questions and they might be asking for the specifics at that time. They might ask the investigator “how did the girl die? Tell us exactly what happened. Do you know who she was yet? What exactly was the murder weapon and how was it used?” and the investigator could say “Look we don’t want to go into the gory details right now.” It could be that they don’t want to go into the details because it’s disrespectful to the victim or maybe they just don’t know yet. Maybe they’ve sent the body to be looked at, to be autopsied by a doctor, a physician, and they don’t have the results yet, and they may not want to speculate. They may not want to talk about what they don’t know. They may not want to guess at what’s happened before they get the details. So, they could say, “Look, I don’t want to go into the gory details” or “I just don’t want to go into it at this time. I don’t know enough. I don’t want to go into it”. So, that’s example number one.

The second example could be that a teenage girl has been out all night, and she’s missed her curfew. So, she has parents who’ve said to her, “Your curfew is 8PM. So, you’ve got to be back before 8PM. That’s your curfew. The time that you have to be out until. So, at 8PM I need you to be home.” But by 8PM she’s not home and instead she arrives home four hours later at 12AM in the morning. And her parents have stayed up all night. They were worried about her. She wasn’t answering her phone, and as soon as she walks in the door they could say, “Look, we’re really angry.” And they could start giving her a lecture. They could say, you know, “You shouldn’t have broken curfew. You should’ve obeyed us. We told you you had to be back by 8PM” and, you know, after they get angry they might say, “Where have you been? Who were you with? What have you been up to? I want to know exactly why you weren’t here at 8PM” and she could say “Look, I don’t want to go into this now”. She could say, “I don’t want to go into the details. I don’t want to go into what I’ve been doing in detail. It’s none of your business. I’m not going into it. So, I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to discuss it. I don’t want to explain it. I don’t really want to go into it now.”

A third example could be that you’re about to give a presentation and before you give the presentation whether it’s a presentation at work or you could be a student like me doing your PhD, doing a Masters or even your undergrad and in the class you have to give a presentation. They could ask you to give a brief summary of what that presentation is. So, they could say, “Could you tell us what your presentation’s going to be about in a nutshell? Give us a nutshell review. Tell us the basics.” And so, you could start telling them about it and you could tell them that, “I’ll go into it more in more detail in a minute. You’ll see the full presentation in the minute at which point I will go into things in more detail.” So, it’s sort of saying that I’ll discuss it more in a minute. This is the basic idea though.

Ok, example number four. So say someone’s come forward as a witness to a crime, say an armed robbery where someone pulled out a gun at a servo, at a service station, a petrol station, and robbed the attendant there, the person working at the servo. The witness could come forward to the police, and the police would interview the witness to try and find out what they know about what happened at the crime. So, they could try and find out some details that will help them find the person who did it. And, they could ask the witness, “Did you get a good look at the person?” and say, the witness says, “Yeah I got a good look at them.” The police could say, “Well could you go into more detail about what they looked like”, and if the witness said something like, “Oh they said something too while they were robbing the place” the police could say, “Well, can you go into more detail about what they said? What did they say? Go into more detail.” So, it just means can you tell us a bit more about what happened? Can you discuss it? Can you explain it? Can you talk a bit more about it?

So, that’s about it guys. I’m sure you guys get the idea about the expression “To go into something” it just means discuss, talk about, explain a little more. Let’s do a listen and repeat substitution exercise here guys. We’ll change it up a little bit. And I want you guys to just listen and repeat after me. I’m going to say the phrase, “I don’t want to go into it” and then I’m going to say it naturally as I would with my Australian accent for example “I don’t wanna go into it”. So try and repeat both of these as close to the way that I’m saying them as possible, just so that you can practice your contractions as well as practice your accent reduction and pronunciation. So, let’s get started.

I don’t want to go into it.

I don’ wanna go indo id.

You don’t want to go into it.

You don’ wanna go indo id.

He doesn’t want to go into it.

He doesn’ wanna go indo id.

She doesn’t want to go into it.

She doesn’ wanna go indo id.

We don’t want to go into it.

We don’ wanna go indo id.

They don’t want to go into it.

They don’ wanna go indo id.

Note: the second sentences in each of these pairs are written as I would say things phonetically. You would never write “don’, indo, id”, and “wanna” would only be used very informally in things like text messages.

And, I guess just as a little discussion about how my pronunciation changes there guys. You’ll probably notice that when I say one of these example sentences well annunciated, well articulated, when I say “I don’t want to go into it” you’ll hear me say all of the “T’s” really really well, and it actually takes quite a bit of effort for me to do that. I have to concentrate in order to pronounce all of those “T’s” because when I say it naturally the “T’s” either slightly disappear, or completely disappear, or they kind of turned into the sound “D” like a “Deh” just a stop almost like a “Id, id” instead of “It”. So when I say “I don’t want to go into it” I’ve said every single “T” there, but when I was speaking naturally in the previous example, and when I speak naturally at the moment with natives I would say “I don’ wanna go indo id”. So, yeah the “T’s” kind of disappear, but that’s why I feel like it’s important for you to say it properly and be able to say it properly, like “I don’t want to go into it”. You have good technique, and then when you speak naturally you can start practicing this sort of reduction in the annunciation or completely proper pronunciation of those “T’s” and you can say it more like “I don’ wanna go indo id”, “I don’ wan da go in da id”. It sounds very weird for me to say it slowly but when said quickly those “T’s” disappear and they sound a little more like “D’s” or they’re not there at all. “I don’ wanna go indo id”.

So, yeah, that’s this episode guys. Sorry it’s gone a little long. I hope you liked it. Keep practicing your pronunciation. Keep practicing your listening comprehension. Again, if you don’t want to sound like an Australian you don’t have to, just get your exposure and practice understanding what Australians sound like when they speak really quickly. Keep it up guys. I’m sure you’re all kicking arse. All the best!