Now, look, we know that we're huge coffee consumers here in Australia, we import a staggering amount of beans, but what's our export nature as a coffee country?
So, we're not exporting beans as such, but we are exporting our coffee culture around the world. So there are Australian style cafes in New York, Paris, London, and Australian baristas are teaching how to make espresso in Singapore, New York, all kinds of places.
And what about those... broader Europe? Has Australia been able to come back to Europe and pass on that culture?
Yeah, definitely. I mean I think...
Look what we stole from you and now we're doing a better style?
Yeah, absolutely. I think we've been first we learnt that it wasn't a 'cup of chino', it's cappuccino. And now we're going back to... Australians are coming... Australians coming back from Italy saying, 'Actually, the coffee is better here'. And in Paris, you know, there are Australian style cafes. In London, cafes will put out on their blackboards 'Australian' or 'kiwi barista'.
Really?
So, it's... Yeah, it's a care in making the coffee, it's noticing where you're sourcing the beans from, are they ethically sourced? And different ways of brewing the coffee that people are starting to appreciate it. Almost like wine.
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 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.
What's going on, guys? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. It is Thursday night, guys, and it's been a long day. I've been trying to smash out these episodes, but I tell you what, they are taking it out of me. It almost feels like I'm back at uni, because now that I am trying to flesh out, to make the Aussie fact portions of these episodes a little bit more involved, a little bit longer, a little bit lengthier, a little bit more in depth, it feels like I'm writing an essay a week, right?
I feel like I'm back at uni where I had a different assignment or essay every single week and I had to get it done, right? And so, it's been an interesting process, because I really enjoy it, I really enjoy picking a subject and diving into it, finding out more about it, working out the story I want to tell, you know, quite often about the history of how that thing first started, and then how it ended up in Australia and how maybe Australians changed the way that that thing is used or behaves or the culture around that thing.
But yeah, it's been a really good process. But it's funny because I kind of obviously have to get it done. So, I have an upper limit of seven days, usually, five days, because I've taken the Monday and Tuesday off to relax. And yeah, I really feel the pressure. The pressure tends to be on. So, anyway.
I hope you guys are enjoying those. I've had a lot of fun doing them, although, it's been a lot of extra work, but yeah, anyway.
So, today's episode. The intro scene there guys was Dani Valent from her YouTube channel, and she was getting interviewed on ABC News. So, this was up on YouTube can go check out her channel through the transcript. There'll be a link or just search 'Dani Valent', 'D A N I V A L E T' on YouTube, and she was talking about coffee culture in Australia. And I'm sure, guys, if you are here in Australia, you will know a little bit about how coffee crazy a lot of us are, especially in places like Sydney and Melbourne.
So aside from that, guys, in the intro scene, which I hope you enjoyed, it was a good interview, a few voices there, a few different accents. Welcome to the Aussie English Podcast. This is the number one podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English, wanting to wrap their head around Australian English, around the accent, understand the slang, the expressions, everything like that. This is the podcast for you.
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All right, spiel aside. Today's expression is 'spill the beans', 'to spill the beans'. I wonder if you guys have heard this before. 'To spill the beans'. Have you ever spilled the beans about something to someone?
Before we get into the expression and what it means, I want to tell you an Australian joke, okay? And I found one related to beans. Okay. So here's the joke:.
Why have all the baked beans moved to Queensland? Why have all the baked beans moved to Queensland?
Because they like to live in 'Cairns'. Do you get it? They like to live in 'Cairns'.
Right. So the joke here the pun here is on the place named 'Cairns', C A I R N S, which is in the north of Queensland near the Great Barrier Reef, right. There are crocodiles there, there's stingers, there there's sharks there. That's Cairns.
And 'can' as is in like 'a tin can' or 'a metal can' that, say, you have food stored inside of, right? So, you might have beans, you might have fruit, you might have vegetables, you might have meat inside a can, and you could also have soft drink inside a can. Right?
So, those words actually sound the same. That's why I like this joke. A lot of people mispronounce the place name 'Cairns'. There's no R pronunciation there. 'Cairns', and the object 'a can'. Okay? 'I've got two cans'. Anyway, that's the joke.
So, today's expression is 'spill the beans'. I chose this one, and the reason I chose this one is because I challenged my dear friends Dana from the Can Learn English Podcast and Shana from the American English Podcast to do the same expression, and to see how they would do their expression episodes.
So, I'm going to put a link into this episode for both of their episodes for 'spill the beans', so that you can listen to them. You can have a listen to their podcasts, if you want to learn Canadian English with Dana's they Can Learn English Podcast, or if you're interested in learning American English with the American English Podcast.
And guys these girls are working with me, I've helped them get off the ground, so my I.T. team as well as me, myself, I'm helping these girls create their podcasts, put their podcast together, and they're doing it in much the same way as I do Aussie English with these expression episodes. So, if you like learning like this, check out their podcasts.
Alright, so 'spill the beans'. Let's go through the definitions in the expression 'spill the beans'.
So, if you 'spill something', you 'spill something', it's to cause or to allow liquid to flow over the edge of something like a container, right, a container that it's in. And it's usually occurring unintentionally, right. So, if I'm boiling some beans on the stove in a pan and I accidentally tip the pan and the water and the beans flow out of the pan, I've spilt the contents, I spilt the beans, I've spilt the water, I've spilt what was in the pan.
But we can also use 'to spill something', and often 'to spill something out' or 'to spill something to someone', to mean reveal information to someone, usually a secret. Okay, so she shouldn't spill out her troubles to you. That's like she shouldn't tell you her troubles. You might tell a friend of yours, you know, 'Spill! Tell me everything! What happened? You know, you went out on a date with this guy or this girl. Spill. I want to know what happened!'.
The last word here 'beans' is the plural of the word 'bean', and this is an edible seed, typically kidney shaped and it grows usually in pods on certain leguminous plants, right. So, you might have soy beans, you might have kidney beans, you might have red beans, black beans. There's lots of different beans you might end up eating in things like soups. Yeah, 'beans'.
So, the expression definition. The definition for the expression 'to spill the beans' isn't that much different from just 'to spill something' in terms of revealing a secret, right. So, if you spill the beans, you reveal secret information accidentally or sometimes maliciously, you know, because you're being nasty, and often it ruins a surprise or another plan that someone has. Okay? You've revealed information and it's ruined a surprise. You've spilled the beans.
So, I was looking into the origin of this expression and it has quite an interesting one. So, it seems that it comes from ancient Greece where people used to have to cast secret votes by putting either white or black beans into a jar, right? So, if it was a yes/no vote for something, you know, do we raise taxes? 'Yes', you would put in a white bean as a positive vote. 'No', you would put in a black bean as a negative vote. And if someone accidentally or deliberately knocked over the jar that the beans were in, then the beans would spill out and the results of the vote, which were supposed to be a secret until the end, would be revealed early. Okay. So they would've spilled the beans. 'To spill the beans'.
So, Let's go through some examples of how I would use the expression 'to spill the beans'.
So, the first example is back when Kel first got pregnant, okay, she she became up the duff (that's sort of an informal way of saying pregnant in Australia. 'Up the duff'). She had a bun in the oven. That's another way of saying it. And there was a time where only two of us knew. So, Kel had been waiting a few weeks after we started trying to have a baby. I'm sure you know how that works.
So, she did some pregnancy tests one day and she went to the bathroom. She did the pregnancy test, she came back, and she showed me them, and was like, 'I think I'm pregnant'.
So, there was a time where just she and I knew, and we wanted to sort of play a joke on my mum and see if she would sort of cotton on to the fact that Kel was pregnant. So, my mum was out for the day. We were at her place. Dad was there as well, and we went to Baker's Delight and bought a bun. And Baker's Delight as a bakery chain where you can buy bread and buns in Australia.
So, we bought this bun, we brought it back to the house, we put it in the oven, right, to allude to 'a bun in the oven', like a baby in the woman. And we waited for mum to get home. When she got home, I was like, 'Mum, did you leave something in the oven? And she's like, 'What?'. And she went over and had a look pulled the bun out of the oven and she was like, 'Why is this in here?'. And I was like, 'Well, what is it mum?', and she's like, 'It's a bun'. And I was like, 'Very good. Where was it?'. 'In the oven', and then she was like, 'Oh my God! Kel's pregnant!'.
That's my best impersonation of my mum's voice. So, she cottoned on to the fact that Kel was pregnant, and in doing that sort of activity, we had spilt the beans, right. We had kind of ruin the surprise that Kel was pregnant.
Example number two. Maybe you are a new immigrant to Australia and you've been working your arse off trying to secure a job so you can support your family out here somewhere like Sydney or Melbourne. So, you write up your CV, your curriculum vitae, your résumé. You submit dozens of your résumés and your CV to different places, and, you know, fill out job applications, you go to heaps of interviews, and eventually find out that you've gotten a job from a company.
So, you come home and you want to keep it a secret until it's all confirmed, but you can't hold it in any longer, right. You can't sort of keep it in. You need to get it out. And so, that night your family come over and you decide 'You know what? Screw it! I'm going to spill the beans!'. And so, you tell them everything, they learn the secret, you spill the beans about your job, you spill the beans to your family.
The last example here is that I want you to imagine you've bought a prezzie, right, a present for your father. Could be for Father's Day or Christmas or his birthday. You've bought him a prezzie. So, you've gotten everyone in the family to kick in, to help pay for this present, to contribute, so that you could buy it, because you wanted to buy something really big, right. Make it really special. Not the kind of thing you could pay for on your own, so you needed everyone to kick in.
So, maybe you've bought him a motorbike or a new car or a holiday or could be anything, you know, a new computer. So, Father's Day finally comes around and you get the whole family together, you sit down, and you're about to give your dad the present to unwrap or, you know, maybe the keys to go outside and see the car or the motorbike, but before you have a chance to tell him what it is, one of your relatives yells it out. And so, they tell him before he even gets a chance to unwrap it, 'Hey, it's this! Hey, it's a motorbike! Hey, it's a car. Hey, it's a computer!'.
And so, your relative spills the beans. He ruins the surprise. He accidentally or deliberately reveals the secret. He spills the beans about the gift to your father.
So, hopefully now guys you understand the expression 'to spill the beans'. This is to tell someone secret information unintentionally or in discreetly in an obvious way. So, to reveal secret information, again, accidentally or maliciously, and it often ruins a surprise or someone's plans. All right.
So, let's go through a listen and repeat exercise here, guys. This is your chance to practice your pronunciation in English. And in the sentence exercise we'll go through a contraction too of the words 'got to', we'll contract those to 'gotta'. Okay? So, listen and repeat after me guys let's go.
To
To spill
To spill the
To spill the beans x 5.
I've got to spill the beans.
You've got to spill the beans.
He's got to spill the beans.
She's got to spill the beans.
We've got to spill the beans.
They've got to spill the beans.
It's got to spill the beans.
Good job, guys. Good job. So, you will notice that instead of saying 'I have got to spill the beans', I'm using a lot of connected speech there. So, I contract 'have' on to the pronoun 'I', 'I've'. I contract 'to' on to the word 'got' and it becomes 'gotta'. And you'll notice the T in the middle there isn't a hard, 'T', 'gotta', or even 'got ta'. it becomes the T flap. 'Gotta', 'gotta', right? It's a lot softer and it's faster, you know, it's smoother. 'I've gotta spill the beans', 'you've gotta spill the beans'.
And you'll also notice there that if you pay attention to the rhythm, what are the words that stick out? Where am I putting the emphasis on this sentence? Right. If you had to think, 'Which words is Pete saying most prominently, putting the emphasis on?'. Which words do you hear? If I say the sentence: 'I've gotta spill the beans'. You'll hear this rhythm of 'de de de de de deh', right?
So, you're going to hear 'I've gotta spill the beans'. So, 'gotta', 'spill' and 'beans' are all important words in that sentence, and so we have to sort of put the emphasis on those words. The other words like the pronouns, the auxiliary verb, and the article 'the', as well as the word 'to', that's why it's contracted on to 'got', those kind of disappear. Okay.
So, working on this kind of rhythm, paying attention to this when speaking English, makes you sound a lot more like a native speaker. Okay? So, we'll do this exercise one more time. Pay attention to how I've contracted 'have' and 'has', how the word 'to' is now this 'ah' at the end of 'gotta', and how the word 'the' or 'the' is now a 'theh' sound. Okay, so here we go.
I've got to spill the beans.
You've got to spill the beans.
He's got to spill the beans.
She's got to spill the beans.
We've got to spill the beans.
They've got to spill the beans.
It's got to spill the beans.
Good work. Now, to finish up, I thought that I would do a few facts about coffee. So, this will go well with the next episode, which is the history of Australian coffee culture. But, before we finished, I thought it'd be kind of cool to go through some facts, because there wasn't really any room for them in the Aussie Fact episode. Okay?
So, the word 'coffee'. 'A coffee' is a drink made from ground and roasted seeds of a tree originally native to Ethiopia. Okay? The coffee tree. And the word actually comes from Dutch 'koffie', spelt K O F F I E, and it went through Turkish and was 'kahveh', which was K A H V E H, into Arabic, and again, I think it's 'qahwah', so Q A H W A H, and then all the way into English to be 'coffee'. Okay. 'Coffee'.
It's actually a fruit pit or seed. It's not a bean. Okay. A coffee bean. And there are two main types: Arabica coffee and Robusta coffee. Arabica being the more popular of the two, where Robusta is more bitter and contains more caffeine.
So, Brazil is the country in the world which grows more coffee than any other nation.
Composer Johann Sebastian Bach wrote an opera about a coffee addicted woman.
Coffee connoisseur Beethoven always counted out 60 beans for his daily cuppa. That's a little bit obsessive.
In Italy, the average barista is 48 years old and the title is very well-respected. In Australia, it's probably more like 20 years old and, you know, the person's failing university.
So, 'espresso'. The word 'espresso' means 'pressed out' in Italian, and it refers to the way which espresso is made by forcing boiling water through pressed coffee grounds.
The most expensive coffee in the world can cost over a $1000 a kilo and it's called Kopi Luwak. My friends in Indonesia and Thailand all know what this is. This is where coffee berries, and the beans inside of them, have been eaten by an Asian palm civet, it's kind of a mammal that looks sort of like a cat and lives in jungles, and the civet has pooed out the beans that it can't digest onto the forest floor, and these are then collected and sold. So, because the animal can't digest these beans, they secrete (excrete*) the seeds and the coffee produced from these seeds is a lot smoother and less acidic, because it's been somewhat affected by the stomach acids in the civet.
Due to demand, many animals are kept in cages sadly and force fed coffee so it can be sold, and this has drawn a lot of criticism from many animal welfare activists.
You can overdose on coffee, although, you need a drink about 30 cups in, you know, half an hour to get a lethal dose of caffeine. Good luck!
26,000 cups of coffee are consumed every second across the world. And 2.5 billion cups are sold every single day.
So, there you go guys. There are a few interesting facts about coffee. I hope you enjoy this episode and I hope you join me in the next one where I will be talking about the history of coffee in Australia and Australian coffee culture.
G'day, mate. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Aussie English Podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. If you'd like to get access to all of my other content and level up your English even faster go to www.AussieEnglish.com.au where you can get access to the Premium Podcast, you can join the Aussie English Academy or you can sign up for my other courses. Have a great one, mate, and I'll see you soon.