It's Australia Day. A big day for surf lifesavers. The air is salty and I hear the seagulls squabbling over last night's fish and chips. The sand is crisp and cool from the high tide overnight. It crunches underfoot as I walk to the beach. The flags are planted in the safest place to swim. Cars roar into the carpark and it only gets louder from there. I start to feel a familiar excitement during the butterflies in my stomach and as the first groups of people reach the sand we stand ready. I'm 16 and I've only have I had to rescue one person.
He got stuck way out the back and then run out of puff. He looked at me with desperation in his eyes and just said: Help! This is why I get up early stand in the midday heat and still want to come back. We work all day non-stop helping people, keeping them safe, saving their lives even. This is why we surf lifesavers do what we do.
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 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.
Finally, finally I can record this episode! So, at the moment, guys, there is a house directly across the road which I can now see through my office window as a whole bunch of tradies out there working on the driveway. There's like concrete on the driveway and they've dug it all up so they've been using a jackhammer. You know that machine that kind of is made from metal and smashes into the ground to break rocks and concrete and so for the last three days, pretty much the entire day, it's just been. And so I haven't been able to record. Anyway, finally here. Hopefully they don't start up whilst I am recording this episode. Hopefully, they're on a lunch break.
Anyway, guys! Welcome to the Aussie English podcast. This is the number one podcast for anyone wanting to learn Australian English or just level up their English in general. If you would like access to the transcripts as well as the MP 3s for the podcast go to AussieEnglish.com.au and sign up for the premium podcast membership and if you would like the premium podcast membership as well as access to everything else in the Aussie English Classroom, I have about 60 or so courses in there to improve your English which includes bonus content for today's expression episode. Make sure that you sign up for the Aussie English Classroom again at AussieEnglish.com.au and guys, there are some big things coming, there are some big things coming.
Praveen my I.T. guy that you may know about, I've been chatting with him recently as well as two of my friends that I'm working with on their podcasts and we are going to completely redesign the website to be a lot more user friendly and to gamify it a lot more so, I might do some episodes on that in the future and talk more thoroughly about that to give you, guys a bit more of an idea of what I have planned, but overall I just want you on there more often. I want you using it more often, I want you to enjoy the process and I want you to learn as effortlessly as possible. That is my ultimate goal, right? To make English learning fun!
So, onto today's episode the interest seen there at the start was a video from ABC News. You can check them out on YouTube. I always really recommend ABC because it's a great place to learn about Australian current affairs, history, culture, news, everything like that. So, this little video here was this boy who works as a volunteer surf lifesaver in Australia talking about his day to day life and he was working at Jan Juc, which is really close to Torquay. You guys might know Bell's Beach and that's only a stone's throw from where I live. It's about 40 minutes away if that, maybe half an hour's drive to get to Jan Juc so it's close by.
Anyway, I thought we could talk about today in the Aussie English fact surf lifesaving and its history in Australia, but before we get into that we'll go through a joke. Today's expression. Some examples some exercises. Then we'll get into the fact. So, the joke, to start with the joke, right? And I couldn't think of one to do with the expression today. So, I just found one about an Australian animal, you're going to love it. You're going to love it.
Why did the wombat cross the road? Why did the wombat cross the road? To see his flat mate. To see his flat mate, do you get it? So horrible! So, there's a lot of these sorts of jokes in English, right? Why did the chicken cross the road? Why did the priest cross the road? Why did the Aussie cross the road? Usually with you know to get to the other side ha ha ha.
But here, it's 'why did the wombat?' You know, that small furry animal in Australia that digs burrows, they're kind of I don't know. They're like really big robust animals. They're kind of halfway between a cat and a dog in their size. They're marsupials. They have a pouch, a pouch that's facing backwards so, they don't fill it with dirt when they're digging holes.
Why did the wombat cross the road? To see his flat mate and these two words are separated. A flat mate, as in a friend who is very squished, right? Flat to the ground like a pancake, flat. Meaning he's been hit by a car, right? He's been run over, he's a flat mate. He has a mate who is flat. The joke here though is on that and the pun with the word flatmate which is a single word that means someone who lives with you in an apartment or in a flat, right? It's someone you share a house with, a flatmate. So, there's the joke. Anyway.
Today's expression guys is To Beg to Differ. To beg to differ. I wonder if you've heard this one before. This was suggested by Emma, Emma has been with us I think since the very beginning in the Aussie English Classroom, so she's had quite a few of these episodes, but it was another good one. She suggested this in the classroom. Everyone voted on it and she won. She killed it.
So, before we get into what that means and some examples of how to use it, let's define the words in the expression to beg to differ. Now we just have two verbs here.
The first one is 'to beg', and this can mean two different things. It could mean that you are asking for food, for money as charity, right? Something given to you freely so, I beg you please give me some food or I beg you please give me a dollar. That's to beg.
But it can also mean to ask someone earnestly or humbly for something, right? A very polite way, like I beg you sir, could you please do this for me? It's a very polite way of asking something.
'To differ'. 'To differ' with someone, this can mean to be unlike or dissimilar. So I differ from my sister in that I am a male and she is a female, but in this sense it means to disagree with someone. So, if I differ in my opinion from you or I differ with you it means that I disagree with you I have a different opinion to you. Ok?
So, what does the expression to beg to differ mean and how would we use it? To beg to differ means to politely disagree with someone, right? So if I beg to differ with you I am asking if I can disagree with you earnestly, politely, humbly. So, it's to state your disagreement in a very polite way and it's usually used in a statement made by a person who is disagreeing with the other person and about to say why, like I beg to differ with you because blah blah blah blah blah.
So, let's go through three examples of how you could use this expression to beg to differ with someone in your day to day life.
Example number one: so imagine you work in an advertisement company where you've taken on a new project and it includes creating the next big Nike ad, right? You've got to create this ad that's gonna be worth millions of dollars for the brand Nike. So, there's a team of eight of you working on this and you're spit balling ideas, you're brainstorming ideas on the first day and at the end of the day there are two ideas that have kind of come out ahead of the pack.
They're the ones that seem the most, you know, useful or the ideal ones and you plan them out and you want to show them to your boss so, you and your team have a clear favourite and you show them saying look, we think they're both ace, we think they're both great ideas, but option A is definitely better than option B and your boss might disagree with you and say actually, I beg to differ. I think, I reckon option B is way better than option A. So, I beg to differ. I politely disagree with you, I think option B was the bee's knees. It's the best.
Example number two: imagine you're having an argument with your friends about which footy team is going to win the premiership in AFL this year. The Australian Football League. So, you think it's gonna be Essendon, The Essendon Bombers another mate of yours might think it's going to be the Geelong Cats. And there's even a friend who reckons it's gonna be Richmond, The Richmond Tigers, although they never win. If you want to put forth your idea and politely disagree with your mates you might say, look guys you might think Geelong is going to win, you might think Richmond is going to win, but I reckon it's going to be Essendon so, I have to beg to differ.
I beg to differ because I reckon Essendon is going to win because of reasons X, Y, Z, and maybe your mates might beg to differ, but use less polite language, so if you wanted to be really informal in begging to differ with your mates you might say oh, as if! They've got Buckley's chance of winning or you might say pig's arse, you know, get stuffed, there isn't a hope in hell that Essendon will win, but if you want to be polite you'll say I beg to differ. I don't reckon they'll win.
The last example: imagine that two cops, two policemen have pulled over a driver. They hop out of their divvy van and they breatho this driver, they breathalyze him, they breath test him for to see whether he's been under the influence of alcohol or not. One of the cops notices that the left rear brake light is broken and that it doesn't work and decides, you know what? The driver hasn't been under the influence of alcohol, but I want to give him a fine anyway. I'm going to give him a ticket for the busted brake light.
If the other cop thinks that's a bit harsh and thinks, you know, this... My mate here the other cops got a bit of a bee in his bonnet about something and he's taking it out on the driver. He might say to his partner I must beg to differ. We shouldn't give him a fine let's just give him a warning and let him go scot free this time, ok? I beg to differ. I have a different opinion.
So, there you go guys, hopefully you understand the expression To Beg to Differ With Someone it means to politely disagree with someone, right? To state one's disagreement with someone in a very polite and humble way.
So, as usual, let's go through a little listen and repeat exercise where you guys can practice your pronunciation. As always, if you want to focus on Australian pronunciation copy me as best you can. If you want to focus on a different accent, that's also cool, but just say the words after me and practise the accent that you're trying to perfect, ok? Let's go.
To
To beg
To beg to
To beg to differ x 5
Now, as I always sort of tell you guys get into the Aussie English Classroom if you really want to level up your pronunciation as there are a number of different pronunciation courses in there to help you nail that Australian English pronunciation, but the interesting fact in that phrase today to beg to differ, I wonder if you noticed what's happening to the G at the end of the word beg. So, if I say that properly I would say beg, beg and it might become sort of smaller and smaller, more subtle, more subtle. Beg, beg. But if I speak quickly and there's a consonant after the word beg the G actually is muted. It's not released, so you won't hear G, it'll get sort of swallowed halfway through. So have a listen. To beg to differ. To beg to differ. My tongue is stopping the sound. Beg, beg, to beg, to differ. To beg to differ.
Ok, so that's something that happens a lot in English with consonants when they're followed by another consonant. Ok, it happens with G K P T B and D. Let's keep going.
I'd beg to differ.
You'd beg to differ.
He'd beg to differ.
She'd beg to differ.
We'd beg to differ.
They'd beg to differ.
It'd beg to differ.
Good work! And there's actually a second example in those phrases there with the D that is the contracted version of would. So, instead of saying I would beg to differ, I've said I'd beg to differ and then both the D and the G are getting muted. I'd beg to differ, right? If I say that fast I beg to differ. So, pay attention to that guys. It's very subtle but it makes a big difference between say I beg to differ and I'd beg to differ because I can hear that the sound is being cut. 'I' is not, 'I'd' is. It's been cut. These are the subtleties in pronunciation in English.
Alright, so let's go through the Aussie English Fact for the day and then we'll finish up, guys. Today I thought it would be a great chance to chat about Surf Life Saving in Australia as Surf Life Saving is a massive part of Aussie culture and until today I didn't even realise that it actually originates Down Under in the Land of Oz in Australia, ok? And it started over 100 years ago in the year 1907 in response to a number of unfortunate drownings at local beaches in Sydney.
The drownings had ramped up in recent years following the relaxation of laws that prohibited people from daylight bathing they weren't allowed to swim during the day. Volunteer groups of men were trained in lifesaving methods and they work to patrol beaches as lifesavers, as lifeguards, looking after the safety of the public who hit the beach on hot sunny days to take a dip, to go for a swim.
In recent years, there was debate between the Manly Lifesaving Club, Bronty Surf Lifesaving Club and Bondi Surf Bathers Lifesaving Club as to which one of these clubs was the first to ever form. However, following a panel of Surf Lifesaving Australia historians reviewing all of the provided documentation by the clubs it was found that Bondi was the first Surf Lifesaving Club to have formed on the 21st of February 1907 at the Royal Hotel in Bondi.
So, I'm pretty sure if you guys go and check out Bondi Beach, you'll get to see some of these locations, right? The surf lifesaving club there and maybe even the Royal Hotel. Before the year ended, nine other clubs were founded and began pulling swimmers in a bit of strife out of the water at the surrounding Sydney beaches. New Zealand took a leaf out of Australia's book in 1909 and 1910 when numerous surf lifesaving clubs popped up in cities like Wellington and Christchurch.
So, what are lifesavers? Lifesavers are volunteers that usually patrolled beaches in groups led by a patrol captain, who generally works on weekends and public holidays using a roster system. They're distinguished from paid lifeguards who are generally employed by the relevant local government authority and who patrol annually all year round. Whether it be a beach, a lake, a pool or other aquatic venue.
So, how do you become a surf lifesaver? Good news is anyone can do this job, right? Anyone can become a Surf Lifesaver in Australia as long as you live near a beach or water. In order to become a Surf Lifesaver, you just have to earn a bronze medallion or a Surf Rescue certificate and then pass the annual proficiency test to maintain your position as a surf lifesaver. Obviously, you have to be able to show you can swim and that you know all of the rescuing techniques.
Lifesavers who are on patrol wear red and yellow cloth caps on their heads and are usually situated at the local surf lifesaving club if it's nearby or in a tower or tent located on the beach where they have a good view of the surf and all the action while not performing rescues. They wear long sleeve yellow shirts and red shorts as a uniform that also protects them from the sun.
So, what kind of gear do they have? Surf lifesavers have access to a number of different bits of gear for saving lives including rescue tubes, paddle boards, Jet Skis, rescue boats, and even helicopters, that patrol larger portions of the Aussie coastline.
Today, in Australia, surf lifesaving has become a fully fledged service spread nationwide and Australia has some 314 surf lifesaving clubs that collectively patrol over 400 beaches across the continent.
In the season of 2003-2004, there were nearly 25,000 active members rostered on to regularly patrol Australian beaches of which 40 per cent were women. In that same season lifesavers performed more than 9,000 rescues provided emergency care to over 26 thousand patients and undertook over 170,200 preventative actions.
So, make sure when swimming Down Under, guys, that you head to beaches with lifesavers present where they're patrolling the beach that you swim between the red and yellow flags and that you take care of each other because drownings happen all too often down under.
Anyway, guys! Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you got a lot out of this episode. I hope you thought it was a ripper. I hope you have a great weekend. I'm still waiting for Noah. He is hopefully going to show himself in the next week or so when Kel finally goes into labour. I'm sure you'll hear about it when it happens, but yeah. Thanks again for being you. I appreciate it and I'll chat to you soon. See ya!
G'day, mate! Thanks for listening to the Aussie English podcast! If you'd like to boost your English whilst 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!