G'day, François, how's it going, mate?
Oh, yes, finally, finally!
Good day!
Huh? No, no, no, mate, it's not 'good' 'day'.
It's 'g'day'.
"G'day" Can you say that?
"G'day". That's what I said.
I said "good day".
Right. Good day.
No, you said "good day".
It's "g'day". We never say "good day".
Yeah. Good day.
Good day, Pete. Good day.
Nah, (beep) I'm just going to make a YouTube video.
Why is it so hard?
I don't know what he was whingeing about.
G'day, you mob, how's it going?
And welcome to this episode of Aussie English.
I'm your host, Pete, and this is the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn
Australian English.
Today is going to be an awesome episode.
Guys, I'm going to teach you how to say "g'day", how to pronounce it, when to use it
and how to respond to it.
And make sure that you stick around to the end of this video so that you can practise the
pronunciation and really nail your "g'day".
OK, don't forget to click that subscribe button guys and the like.
If you enjoy this video like it, if you like it and share it with anyone you think might be
interested.
Let's get into it, guys.
All right, so what is "G'day"?
What is "G'day"?
If you've met an Australian, if you've seen movies like Crocodile Dundee that are filmed in
Australia and tend to show quite a bit of Australian culture, you're going to have
come across the phrase the slang term.
"G'day" "G'day".
"G'day! Dick Van Deep, Australia. I'm fine, how are you?" Now, this is just a
contraction of the two words 'good' and 'day'.
OK, they get contracted together and you will hear "g'day"
"g'day".
Most commonly: "g'day mate" or "g'day, how's it goin'?".
As a quick note, no Australian will ever say "good day", OK?
Unless they're trying to tell you how "g'day" was formed.
So when is the greeting "g'day" used in Australian English?
It's usually used during the day, funnily enough, as an
informal greeting.
So when you meet someone you'll say "G'day".
You could use this in person.
When you meet someone in the street, at the shops, someone you know, someone you
don't know, you can say "g'day".
You could also use this on the phone.
Right. If you call someone up you might say "G'day, Bill!
It's Pete here." Or someone answering the phone might say "G'day, Pete here!" as
well. And you could probably use this, too, in emails that are very informal
. You know, "G'day, Pete!
How's it going? Just sending you this email to blah, blah, blah."
"G'day" Will we use this in the evening?
Yes, we will.
We'll tend to use this in the evening as well.
It might be a bit weird to say this in the late, late night.
So if it was midnight, New Year's Eve, you're partying and you meet someone for the first time,
maybe a little strange to say "G'day, how's it going?".
Though, probably happens as well.
One last note here.
It is informal.
Don't forget that. And it is somewhat masculine.
Women will use this.
One hundred percent, women will use this, but it is a little blokey, a little
informal. And if you don't want to come across that way when speaking
English, you can avoid it and just say something like "hello" or "hey", ok?
But to be honest, if you come across any Aussies say "g'day", they'll love it.
So how do you reply to "g'day"?
Imagine you're in the street, someone comes up to you whether you know them or not, and they say to
you, "G'day!" - what do you say in response?
"G'day!" You can just use "g'day", you can say "g'day, how's it goin'?", that's a good one as
well. So you can follow "g'day" with a question "how's it going?"
A really common phrase that we'll use.
We'll use those pair. It's kind of like a one two combo, right.
"G'day, how's it goin?".
You might also have. "G'day, mate!".
So you might hear someone come up to you and say "G'day" and you might say, "oh, g'day, mate!".
And they might say, "How's it goin'?" And then the conversation continues.
All right. So before we do the pronunciation breakdown, I want to talk about a few
common errors. So one of the biggest errors is literally saying
good day when you meet someone.
Obviously, this is not going to confuse anyone.
They will understand exactly what you're trying to say.
It's just not common. Very, very, very few English speakers will
say "good day", particularly Australians.
They will use other kinds of either contractions: "G'day", or just different kinds
of greetings. "Good day" seems very formal.
OK, so pronunciation mistake number one, it's not really a mistake, but saying
"good day" instead of contracting it to "g'day".
The other one is saying "good day" where you emphasise both syllables pretty
equally. OK, so you say "good day".
"Good day". It's more of a duh-duhn rhythm, right.
It's the second syllable that's getting really emphasised.
"G'day" "G'day" duh-duhn duh-duhn "G'day"
"G'day". And now let's get into the nitty gritty of the pronunciation.
All right. So the first sound is /g/.
Ok, so that is a G stop consonant, it's where the tongue, the
back of the tongue is touching the top of the mouth, blocking the air, and then the air comes out.
It's released. /g/.
/g/ After that, you won't see any vowel between the G the
"day" when it's written, but it's actually a schwa sound, so that "oo" vowel
sound in the word 'good' has been reduced and it becomes a
schwa, ɘ sound.
So instead of hearing "/gʊ", you're going to hear /gə.
OK, so say that with me, /gə.
/gə, /gə, so neutral mouth,
the tongue isn't low, it's not high, it's kind of just level in the mouth, the lips aren't
rounded, they just sort of normal sitting there.
/gə You know, you've almost had a brain freeze, right?
You imagine one of those brain sucking aliens from Futurama on your head and you're just
like /gə.
/gə. Now, the next bit is the secret to saying
"G'day" correctly.
OK, can you hear a hard /d/ sound?
"G'day".
"G'day". Am I saying "good day" or am I saying
"g'day"? "G'day".
You've probably worked out what's going on there because we have ə the vowel sound ə and then we
have the diphthong /æɪ/ after the D.
What's happening to the D?
It's becoming a d-flap or a t-flap /ɾ/.
So this is where the tongue is lifting, touching the roof of the mouth, but
ever so quickly just moving past duh-duh, and it's moving from the front to the
back, duh-duh.
/ɾ/, G'day G'day G'day
That's the key, if I hear a hard /d/, it sounds a little
unnatural. Good day.
Good day. And that's what a lot of Americans and Brits will end up actually doing.
Good day. Good day.
You want to turn that hard D into a D or T flap of the tongue.
Ok, "G'day".
G'day. And the last little bit here is that diphthong, that very Australian,
/æɪ/ diphthong, so this is two vowel sounds /æ/ as in the
word 'cat' or 'cap' and
/I/ as in the word 'it' or a 'bit'.
Ok, so it goes /æɪ/ /æɪ/ /æɪ/ /æɪ/.
G'day G'day.
So say that with me. We'll do it five times.
G'day. G'day.
G'day.
So let's recap: the G sound /g/.
The reduced schwa sound, that vowel sound that's reduced /ə/ /gə.
There's no D it's a T/D flap, OK, T or D flap /gə d,
/gə d, /gə d.
And then we have that diphthong.
/æɪ/ G'day.
/æɪ/ G'day. /æɪ/ "G'day!" "How's it goin'?
G'day!" "G'day! G'day, mate!
G'day!" Lastly, guys I want to go over some common phrases with "g'day".
OK, so this is what you're going to hear from people.
Number one is just the standard "g'day". G'day.
G'day. G'day.
G'day. The next one is the one-two combo with "mate"
after it.
"G'day, mate" "Oh, g'day, mate!" "G'day, mate!" "G'day, mate!"
The third one is the one-two combo with the question
"How's it goin'?".
And I might have to do a video about breaking this down.
"How's it goin'?".
So you'll often hear "g'day" "how's it goin'" or "g'day, how's
it goin'?". "G'day, how's it goin'?" "G'day, how's it goin'?"
And then lastly, we've got a sort of two here.
You can kind of re-arrange these.
How you decide suits you best.
You could say "G'day, mate.
How's it going?" "G'day, mate.
How's it going?" or you could say "G'day, how's it goin', mate?"
"G'day, how's it goin', mate?" "G'day, how's it goin', mate?" All right guys.
So that is it for today.
Hopefully now you will nail your "g'day"s when you are speaking
Australian English or when you come in contact with Australians.
They will love it.
If they hear you say this, they are absolutely going to love it.
OK, besides that, guys, don't forget to subscribe to the channel.
If you want to see more videos like this, give it a like if you liked it and share the
video with someone who you think will get a lot out of this as well.
In the meantime, I'm your host.
Pete, check out everything else on the podcast.
And don't forget, if you want to learn Australian English, if you want to learn Australian
pronunciation, check out the link in the description below to have a look at my Australian
pronunciation course.
OK, you're going to learn all of the different sounds in Australian English, the vowels, the
consonants. And then there are twenty five advanced pronunciation lessons to help
you sound a lot more like an Australian when you're speaking English.
Anyway, I almost forgot to mention that, but I hope you have a great day and I'll see you next
time. OK, see you.