G'day and kaya. Welcome to the Australians Teach English Podcast, the podcast by language learners with language learners for language learners. My name is Glen and I'm the owner and director of the Australians Teach English Institute. And last year in 2022, I spent a lot of my time in hospital. I spent nearly six weeks in intensive care. And for most of that time, almost all of that time and a little bit after it, I was not allowed to drink any water or drink anything, actually. And I was drier than a dead dingo's donger. And help me talk about this and related pronounciation of this expression is Oriana, welcome to the show again, Oriana.
Hello. How are you?
How are you? I'm well I'm much better than during that time. That's for sure. That's for sure. What is news with you Oriana?
I don't have any news.
No news. No, nothing happening with nothing happening with your cats.
Well, my cat's better. Luckily, but nothing else. I just have to give it some medication, special food. That kind of stuff.
Is she drinking again?
Yeah, she's drinking and eating. So it's okay.
But when she wasn't drinking, how do you think she felt?
Drier than a dead dingo's donger.
Exactly right. I think she probably felt drier than a dead dingo's donger as well. And so in this little Australian ex... well very classic Australian expression. What do you think we mean when we say drier than a dead dingo's donger.
Something really dry. I don't know.
Something really, really, really, really dry. And when might you feel really really, really, really dry?
Maybe in the centre of Australia.
Yeah. Often, especially at this time of year in the middle of summer. You might feel
Thirsty?
You might feel thirsty. And just a little bit thirsty?
No, a lot.
Yeah, really, really, really, really thirsty. And so this is an expression that came to my mind for for two reasons in in hospital when before I was allowed to drink again. All I could think of was drinking, my mouth was so so dry. I was so so so thirsty, unbelievably thirsty. As you can imagine when you're not allowed to drink anything. For six or seven weeks. I was definitely drier than a dead dingo's donger. To make things worse, I was having fevers of 41 degrees in regularly almost every day in ICU as well. So this made it 10 times as as worse. But the other interesting thing about this expression, it includes lots of plosives. And in my time in intensive care and for a little bit afterwards, I was on a ventilator to help me breathe, my lungs had filled with fluid and so on. So I had to have assistance with my breathing. And so they put the they put the tube in below your vocal cords. And so what this does is it means that you do not have any air flowing over your vocal cords. So knowing this Oriana, do you think I could speak?
No. No.
Well the answer is basically no. With a but.
Okay, what is the but?
The but is these plosives, the sound called plosives. Why is that a but?
What are plosives?
So plosives are p t k b d g sounds
p t k b d g sounds.
So when you are saying this, and even the people at home listening to this, they might be practicing the p t k b d g sounds. And you might notice something interesting with these sounds
That you don't need your vocal cords?
Exactly right. You don't need your vocal cords to make these sounds. How do you make these sounds?
With your mouth or with the tongue? I guess?
Well, you make them with your lips and you make them with your tongue. And so this expression drier than a dead dingo's donger has a lot of what sounds in it
Oh, I don't know.
It has these plosive sounds in it. As the b and the d and the g sounds or sorry, mainly the d and the g sounds. So yeah, yep. And so when I...Yeah, so when I was in intensive care, I wasn't able to speak clearly. But some of the doctors would come around and would try and have conversations with me. And they found it very amusing. Because they would come and talk to me and I would answer back. And they would say, Oh, you're not supposed to be talking.
Well, you weren't. But...
That's right I wasn't. But they're like, "how are you doing that?" And I was, I was, I well I couldn't explain it very well that I sort of was able to make particular sounds. So I could say particular particular words. And it was certainly easier than clicking my fingers when I needed something or I wanted something which was a horrible experience to have not being able to actually ask for what you wanted or something that you needed or a question that you wanted, answered. It was a horrible experience. But anyway, I was able to yeah, I was able to speak somewhat with some of the doctors, and especially the ones that were better at lip reading and unfortunately, in intensive care, they actually do have to get pretty skilled with with lip reading. So my other thought that came to mind was, well, how can we communicate with a limited range of sounds?
I don't know. I think I'll be like, very difficult but yes, but I've never been in that situation.
I don't think very many people will haven't and hopefully, hopefully none of our listeners have or never none of our listeners ever, ever going to have that experience. Because it's not it's not nice. But how do you think we can communicate with limited sounds?
I don't know.
When I was thirsty...What would, what do you think was the most common thing that I asked for? Water? So without being able to say water? What do you think I did?
Signs?
Yeah. Exactly. Right. So how can we communicate without making sounds?
With signs? That will be? Yeah.
Exactly. Right. And so when you're in this position where you can't talk, you actually realize how much communication is nonverbal. And, and how much you learn to appreciate different communication styles with especially with the nurses and the doctors. And, and some of the nurses would actually spend time with you and actually try and understand what it was that you were trying to say. And how did you think how do you think that made me feel compared to some of the other nurses that didn't actually spend the time doing that?
Well, you had like some contention or make you feel more welcomed.
Absolutely. Even though even though they couldn't hear me, I felt like someone was actually trying to listen to me. Yeah. So when we go to another country and we're not speaking very well...What can we do? What can we learn from this?
To do weird sounds with your mouth and tongue.
No, I don't think either that's the point that I'm trying to make here no.
Yeah, okay that you can communicate by signs.
So a lot of our communication is nonverbal. So how do you think you could actually communicate someone with someone who is not being very clear?
Yeah, like signs. I've done that
Yeah, with me when I'm speaking Spanish.
No, you speak Spanish really well.
Thank you. Thank you. And so yes, we can use hands. So in places like Argentina, where we're very expressive with our hand signals, I used, people used to joke with me, I would say, I was I was learning sign language in Argentina. And some people would say is that isn't that just Argentinian Spanish anyway? Because people are very act, because people are very active with their hands. But there are things that are actually really universal with sign language, so almost universal. Like, for example, you can't see it here, but I'm putting my thumbs up. So what would that mean?
Good onya.
Would mean good. Exactly. Onya, good onya. Yeah, exactly. Right. I mean, there if there are funny ones in Argentina, you know. Like this one of the shaking of the hand.
Yeah, that's a really interesting characteristic.
It's probably very Italian as well. Yeah, there are. There are, there aren't really any words for that? Are there?
Huh? No, not exact word
You're expressing more sentiment or a feeling?
Yeah. It's like, what are you saying, you know, what's happening to?
O que? What's going on? Crazy. Exactly, exactly. And until you can't actually speak, you don't realize how much of this sort of, you know, silent language that we actually that we actually use. And so I was reasonably surprised how well I could communicate if the person was actually willing to spend time trying to figure out what it was that I was trying to say. So, so yeah. So coming back to this drier than a dead dingo's donger. And these sounds are there any expressions or sounds that you think might be difficult in Spanish for learners?
The r I think it's really difficult for
But that's not a plosive though.
Yeah. I don't think if I got really well, the concept of plosives.
So there are six main plosive sounds. p t k, b d g.
Okay.
I'll give you I'll give you an example. One that it really difficult for English speakers. To then learn in Spanish is the word todo.
Yeah.
Why do you think that is difficult?
Well, because he has an r.
No, todo. I'm not saying toro. I'm not saying the bull.
Oh, todo. Like, all.
Exactly. And then you didn't hear I didn't pronounce it correctly. Did I?
Well, I thought you were mispronouncing the r.
Yeah I still can't pronounce it correctly, even after like, however many years of....
It is understanable. It's really difficult.
Yeah. And so what do you think is the particular difference with these sounds for people to make regardless of whether it's in English or in Spanish?
I think that our t it's like more pronunciated or something? I don't know.
They have very, very slight differences. Because these are all of these are plosives. So they all use the tongue and the lips to make to create the sound, there is no comma, there is no combination with the nose or no combination with the vocal cords, either. And so this is the largest group of what we call consonant sounds. So they actually have the smallest amount of difference between them when it comes to mouth, tongue and lip position. So, the smallest difference in your tongue and your lip position will change the sound. And it'll make it sound like something else. For example, we can think of words like band or dan, or can. These if you say them very quickly, are gonna become jumbled up.
What?
If you say pan, tan, can, band, dan, gang they will that's very, very difficult to get your mouth into the correct position for all of these sounds. Because we have to be very accurate with the sounds. And so then when it comes to us learning Spanish, and we have a word like todo either we go todo, we change the sound completely. Or we then sound like a complete gringo and we say todo. Yeah, you hear that? You hear that? All the time, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
So how do you think we can practice this to make this better?
I don't know. I think you are the expert here.
I wouldn't recommend going in intensive care and going on a ventilator, that's for sure.
No, stop recommending going into intensive care.
But we can actually just in our mind, actually listen to the sounds, and repeat the different words and try and notice what is actually happening with our tongue position and our mouth position with all of these sounds. And we can do this with with all of this, and especially when it came to todo and I remember a situation where I was really trying to get this correct. And I was walking past a bus stop in Buenos Aires, it's going todo, todos to us all this sort of stuff. And I was saying it out loud and it was dark and so I didn't think I think I thought I was on my own. And I walked past this bus stop and there's all these people staring at me thinking that I would that I'm a crazy man practicing my pronunciation. But it is it is something that we can actually we can actually do. So, particularly with these sounds and then looking at different expressions like drier than a dead dingo's donger and actually trying to deconstruct the sounds looking at the individual sounds of these words and practicing them. So coming back to this expression, is there something similar that you can think of?
Ah, yeah but I don't know if it is really polite to say.
Oh, so this this expression is not a polite one either. Don't worry about that.
Well, seco como culo de vieja.
Drier than your old man's ass. Something like that.
Yeah, something like that. Yeah.
Anything else?
That was the first one that come up to my mind. What else what else?
Nothing else?
No, I ???
So a dingo, what is a dingo Oriana?
It's kind of dog
It is and what is the dingo famous for in Australia?
What?
What is the dingo most famous for in Australia, Oriana?
I don't know. Dying.
No stealing babies.
Jeez.
Yep. Yep. The Chamberlain case, I need to teach you some more Australian history don't I about the Chamberlains, and anyway everyone would have probably heard from Friends "maybe a dingo ate your baby" And that's where it comes from. And so anyway, dingoes don't walk around stealing people's babies but they are infamous for this, unfortunately. So if you guys out there in listener land have a similar expression to this, or you are curious about any of the things that I've said or spoken about in today's episode, then give us a call. You can find us at Instagram and Facebook and all the usual places. So from us here, it's definitely time to get a drink. I'm thirsty after all this I'm drier than a dead dingo's donger. From us here at the Australians Teach English Podcast, the podcast by language learners with language learners, for language learners, it's us saying goodbye.
For more information about the Australians Teach English Institute, go to AustraliansTeachEnglish.com or follow us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube at Australians Teach English