The Japanese have landed in Papua and establish themselves at the eastern end of the one track, which leads across the island to Port Moresby.
The enemy has brought us into the war right on our own shore.
Early 1942 was Japan's most belligerent moment. They felt they could take every nation in Asia at will. They felt that Australia was simply going to be a pushover.
One morning these blokes came around and they said they wanted to make a battalion up to guard the Tropics. They said 'you can take your tennis rackets and cameras and all sorts of things.
We had here the picture of an Australian army doing their damnedest to win this war, but they were being stabbed in the back by high command who failed to understand the terrain and failed to supply the soldiers at the frontline. We have to remember that Australia then was the only free nation in Asia. The Japanese had to be stopped somewhere. For the first time, in the mountains of the Owen Stanleys, they saw resistance.
G'day, guys and welcome to Aussie English. My objective here is to teach you guys the English spoken down under. So, whether you want to speak like a fair dinkum Aussie or you just want to understand what the flippin' hell now we're on about when we're having a yarn, you've come to the right place. So, sit back, grab a cuppa and enjoy Aussie English.
G'day, guys! What's going on? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, you mob! I hope you're going well, I hope you're having a better week than me, with regards to sleep. Noah is not here this time. He is currently asleep in his pram, in his stroller near the front door. We just got back from going out for a sort of morning tea/coffee. We needed to get out and he wasn't sleeping, so what we found recently is that anytime you put him in the stroller, any time you put him in the pram and you take him for a walk, as soon as I take him outside in the pram and I get to the bottom of the stairs, he's stops crying. He stops making noise and he's dead to the world.
He's asleep, you know? He is sleeping like a log. So, it's been crazy, I've walked a lot. I think each day I've been doing about eight kilometres because I go for like two walks, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and each time he gets a good sleep, mum gets a rest, Kel gets to sort of chill out and sleep for a bit and yeah it's been... It's been difficult to get used to, but it's been worth it. It's been good.
Anyway, welcome to the Aussie English Podcast, guys. This is the number one podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English, but also English in general.
If you guys want the bonus content for these podcast episodes, like the transcripts and the MP3s, you can download those when you join the Premium Podcast membership at www.AussieEnglish.com.au, so you'll also get access to the Premium Podcast player, so that you can read as you listen, effortlessly, and we're actually developing a new player for the new website that will be able to allow you to pause and look up the vocab, so every single word, all the different expressions, you'll be able to hover over them with your mouse and you'll see the definition of those words. So, hopefully this is going to make listening, reading, learning a lot more seamless, right? A lot easier a lot more effortless.
On top of this, if you would like more than just access to the bonus podcast material and you want access to my 60 courses, 60 plus courses as well as the courses that I make for each and every expression episode like this one, where you get a dialogue, a video with a sort of natural English conversation between me and usually someone else, although I use my voice and change the pitch of it sometimes and you'll learn a heap of vocab, a heap of expressions, often reinforcing the vocab in the expressions used in this episode, go to AussieEnglish.com.au and join the Aussie English Classroom.
You can currently try that for one dollar and as I said about the podcast we're working on improving the classroom at the moment, so I'm developing a new system, a new way in which you can consume the content that will really emphasize culture, history and current affairs in Australia to really help those arriving in Australia or wanting to come to Australia to work, to travel, to live, to be able to integrate more easily into culture here in Australia, ok? So, that will be the primary aim of the new Aussie English classroom.
Anyway, big intro, guys. The intro scene there was from an ABC documentary called Kokoda. I highly recommend that you go and check this out. Do a Google search for it, have a look on YouTube. There'll be a link in the transcript for the trailer that I took that short clip from, so check out Kokoda to learn more about the Kokoda Trail and the Kokoda Trail campaign, which we'll be talking about in the Aussie English fact later on today.
Before then, let's go through an Aussie joke, we'll go through the expression, definitions of the words in the expression and the expression itself, some examples, we'll then go through a pronunciation exercise and then the Aussie fact.
So, the joke today, guys, the joke today is: what does a hiker love to listen to? So, a hiker is someone who hikes, they like to go up mountain trails and walk up those mountain trails, when they go up and down, that's hiking. What does a hiker love to listen to?
A trail mix. A trail mix. I'll explain it. So, when you create... Or back in the day I think we don't really do it anymore, but back in the day when we used to have tapes, right? That you would listen to, if you made a mix tape, it would be that you would put different songs onto a single tape from different artists, from different musicians, from different bands. You would take different songs, you would mix them together, you'd put them on a tape, and the tape would be a mix tape. And so, you would often make these if you were going away and you wanted to listen to something in the car before we obviously had the internet and Itunes and everything else where you can just download MP3s.
Now, the pun here is with trail mix, which is what hikers or people camping or walking usually eat while they're hiking, while they're walking along trails. They'll eat a trail mix, which is usually a mix of berries and nuts, right? It'll be a trail mix and mix that you take on the trail to eat and the pun here is with a mix tape, so that's the joke. What does a hiker love to listen to? A trail mix.
Alright, so anyway. The reason I chose that joke today was because the expression is down the track, ok? Down the track. So, I was thinking what can I talk about related to jokes and related to the Aussie English fact that are related to words in this expression? The word track, a trail, you know, like a path that you can walk down then that's how I found these things.
So, Down the Track was suggested by Waqas in the Aussie English classroom as we do every week, everyone suggests their expressions, we vote on them, Waqas won this one, so good job Waqas. Let's go through and define the words in the expression.
So, down. Down means towards or in a lower position or place, especially two or on the ground or another surface, ok? So, ultimately if you go from up, down, your descending, ok? So, you're going downwards, you're going in a downward direction, you're going below, right? Often south if you want to think about it in terms of north,south. Down.
A track. A track is a rough path or road, typically one beaten by use rather than constructed, ok? So, when we say beaten by use, we mean that the track is created, you beat the track often with your feet or driving across it, and that's what creates it, as opposed to someone has created the path by digging it up and then, you know, putting concrete down or bitumen or something like that. If you just keep walking over the same area, often you create a track, right? Where there's no plants growing because the the ground is really compacted. So, that's a track. Synonyms could be like 'a path' or 'a trail'.
So, the expression 'down the track'. 'Down the track'. If we say that we'll do something down the track, it's that we'll do something in the future, right? So, further along in terms of time or progression, right? 'Down the track'. In the future. I'll help you down the track. I'm thinking about doing this down the track, in the future, as if you're walking down that path and you'll worry about something else further down the path when you get down that track.
So, let's go through some examples of how I would use this expression. So, number one will use a literal example, ok? Imagine you're going hiking in the Grampians or the Otway Ranges, which are some places that you can go camping and hiking in Victoria. So, you've gone away with your family, you know, you, your sister maybe your folks as well, you're tearing it up and you're wanting to race ahead along this trail, along this track and hike faster than your family, than your folks or your sister want to hike. So, you ask them can I go ahead and can I meet up with you guys later on, you know, maybe at a beach or maybe at a river that's further down the track?
And they say yeah, no worries, go for it. We'll meet you further down the track, we'll meet you later on, we'll meet you up ahead, we'll meet you shortly further down the track. We'll meet you down the track. So, that's the literal sense and the figurative sense, we'll meet you in the future, but also because you're walking along a track they will literally meet you down the track and I guess in this sense it would often be the idea that you're walking in either a flat, a flat surface, like a flat track, you're not going up or you're going downwards. If you're going up the hill, you know, up a hill or climbing up a mountain or something along a track you probably wouldn't say down the track, you'd say up the track.
So, number two: imagine you are a high school student in Australia, you've just completed the final exams in Year 12 and you've done really well, you've scored really highly and you are dux at your school, a dux is the person who scores the highest in a certain year level, ok? Your folks, your friends, your family, everyone that you know are all asking you about what you want to do next year, are you going to uni? You know, what do you plan to do now that the world is your oyster? You scored incredibly highly, you can do anything you want, you can study anything you want, you can choose the career of your dreams, what do you want to do? And maybe you're not in a hurry to go to uni, you know, maybe instead you want to travel the world, after all the world's your oyster, maybe you've got itchy feet and you want to go globetrotting, you want to go abroad for a year or so.
So, you might let them in on your plans and tell them that you'll work that out down the track, you'll work out what you want to do at uni in a year or so, in the future after you've taken it easy for a while, had a break from study, you'll work that out down the track.
The last example, imagine you are a musician who plays guitar or bass or drums in a band or like me when I was younger, I used to sing in a band. So, you're a really talented group who play a lot of local gigs at places like pubs or restaurants or other small venues in the hopes of one day making it big, but for now you're just taking things as they come. You're practicing writing your tunes, you know, honing your craft, jamming as often as possible and embracing and enjoying the process of just being musicians and writing good music. However, you may have in the back of your mind one day down the track I want to get signed to a record label, I want to make it big, I I want to tour the world with my band, I want to become famous down the track, in the future, I've got plans to do all those things, but not right now.
So, hopefully now, guys, you understand the expression 'down the track'. It just means in the future, right? Further along in terms of time or progress, 'down the track'.
So, as usual, let's go through a little listen and repeat exercise where you guys can work on your pronunciation. I'll say a series of sentences, just repeat after me. If you're trying to nail your Aussie accent then really listen to what I'm saying and how I say it, and if you're working on any other English accent obviously just say the words after me and pay less attention to my pronunciation. Ok? Let's go.
Down
Down the
Down the track x 5
I'll see her down the track.
You'll see her down the track.
He'll see her down the track.
She'll see her down the track.
We'll see her down the track.
They'll see her down the track.
It'll see her down the track.
Good job! So, there's a few things I can point out here pronunciation wise, you'll notice that with the L at the end of I'll, You'll, He'll, She'll, all those pronouns, the contraction of will, which is an apostrophe and then two l's, you'll hear it as a dark L, instead of a light L. So, instead of I'll or you'll, you'll hear I'll or you'll. Sounds more like a reverse W, right? Instead of 'leh' it's 'ew'. I'll see her down the track, you'll see her down the track and the last bit I wanted to point out is that the H in 'her' it disappears, it gets deleted and, so what happens there is that we link the word see to the word her with a linking Y and that H disappears. I'll see her down the track. You will see her down the track, right? It's pretty subtle when I say quickly, I'll see her down the track, you'll see her down the track, but it's in there, it's happening.
Remember, guys, if you want to work on your pronunciation join the Aussie English classroom at www.AussieEnglish.com.au and to complete the pronunciation course. I've got heaps of lessons in there on every sound in Australian English, in Australian English pronunciation and on top of that there is a series of videos on connected speech, on reductions and on linking words together, ok? So, if you want to sound a lot more natural when you speak English and you really want to take your pronunciation to the next level, make sure that you join the Aussie English classroom and complete those courses as well as the other exercises like this in the other episodes.
Good job! So, now let's go through the Aussie fact for today and it might be a little long one, but it's worth it, it's interesting. So, today I wanted to talk about the Kokoda Track. This is well renowned in Australian history and Australian culture a lot of people know about Kokoda. In fact, I would probably be certain that 99 percent of Australians will know about Kokoda if you ask them. Let's talk about background of the Kokoda Track.
So, the Kokoda Track or Kokoda Trail is a 96-kilometre-long single file foot thoroughfare that runs through the Owen Stanley Range in Papua New Guinea, in the south east of the country. It's famously known by Aussies as the location of the 1942 Second World War battle between the Japanese and primarily Australian Allied Forces in what was at the time the Australian territory of Papua.
So, the track begins at Owen's Corner, in Central Province, 50 kilometres east of Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea and it cuts through rugged and isolated terrain, which is only passable by foot to a village in Oro Province with the name of Kokoda.
The trail passes primarily through the land of the mountain Koiari people, and it reaches a height of 2.19 kilometres passing around the peak of Mount Bellamy. The landscape is characterised by hot and humid days, intensely cold nights, torrential rainfall, which makes it the perfect setting for endemic tropical diseases such as malaria.
All in all, the track is a challenging and arduous undertaking where hikers doing this track today usually take anywhere between 4 to 12 days to complete it. However, there is an annual race across this trail that began back in 1975, and in 2008 a record of 16 hours and 34 minutes was set for the completion of the track.
So, let's talk about the history of the Kokoda Track. The track was first surveyed by Henry Hamilton Stuart-Russell, in the year 1899 with the aim of creating a path from Port Moresby to the north coast of New Guinea. Stuart-Russell's group shot numerous local people that threatened them during their journey. Of note, was a particular encounter as they were approaching the Yodda Valley where indigenous resistance was met with rifle fire from the group and Stuart-Russell noted that the tribesmen:.
"Not being familiar with the effect of a bullet from Martin Henry or a Snider rifle, they imagined their shields sufficient protection. The rifle practice however was too good and though they came on again and again they were repulsed every time with a loss.".
On hearing of these confrontations, the Colonial Government sent Captain Charles Monckton to resupply the group with food, ammunition and troopers.
Monckton reached the surveyor's camp and discovered that they had been barricaded in a log hut after being surrounded by the local tribesmen. Monckton's force quickly swept away the surrounding natives with rifle fire after which they were able to unite with Stuart-Russell's group.
Gold was also discovered in the area by Stuart-Russell, which further encouraged British and Anglo-Australian prospectors to enter the region that down the track became known as the Yoda-Kokoda Goldfields.
Due to the conflict between miners and local tribes, the colonial paramilitary force known as the Armed Native Constabulary was deployed in order to enforce British rule in the region.
From 1900, officers such as William Armit, Alexander Elliott and Archibald Walker led their troopers to quash any opposition killing many villagers. Officer Armit led a group of troopers who shot 17 people dead in one village along the Mambare River in an atrocious act.
The colonial management decided to establish a government settlement in 1904 in order to act as a base for the troopers and work to consolidate British rule. This station became known as 'Kokoda' and was used by the Armed Native Constabulary to subdue the local population.
Paths from Kokoda were created with the use of forced labour from local and distant tribes as well. As encouragement to take part in the Labour government officer Henry Griffin ordered that those who refused to do the labour were to be punished by having their pigs shot and their taro plants stolen.
The name 'Kokoda' truly ascended into the collective psyche of Australia between the months of July and November in the year 1942 during the Pacific War of World War II. Throughout the five month period, a series of battles took place between the Japanese and allied forces, later named 'the Kokoda Track Campaign'.
So, there you go guys. There's a bit of information about Kokoda. I'm going to include a big section on the Kokoda Track Campaign in the expression course for this episode in the Aussie English Classroom as this episode was quite long. If you want access to that, just sign up at www.AussieEnglish.com.au and I'll see you in there.
All the best, guys! Thanks for joining me and I'll see you next week.
G'day, mate! Thanks for listening to the Aussie English Podcast! If you'd like to boost your English was also supporting the podcast and allowing me to continue to bring you awesome content every single week, please consider joining the Aussie English classroom at www.AussieEnglish.com.au and start your one dollar trial today. You'll get unlimited access to the premium podcast as well as all of my advanced English courses and you'll also be able to join three weekly speaking calls with a real English teacher. Thanks so much, mate, and I'll see you soon!