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Episode 2: Bush Dance

Episode 2: Bush Dance
Learn how to say dance with Suhasini and some useful expressions for talking about the past.

Transcript

This story is about Su learning a new style of dancing.

I'm Damon

I'm Su.

And this is Edwin. Nice to meet you Su. Welcome to our bush dance.

Thanks. I've never been to a bush dance before. I do Bollywood dancing but bush dance, I have no idea what it is. So yeah, I mean, I'm a bit nervous about that actually.

Notice that you can say dance - 'I've never been to a bush dance' and you can also say dancing - 'I've never been bush dancing'. And dancing can be pronounced two ways - 'dancing' or 'dahncing'

I mean I love dancing, so any kind of dancing I'm like, happy to do so I'm really curious to find out what this dance is all about.

The -ing form is used like this for activities such as dancing - they like to dance, they like dancing, ride riding, swim, swimming, and ski, skiing. Now, how does Su feel?

I can see that people are dressed differently. I actually feel like I'm in a strange land now. I've never seen this kind of thing before so I feel a little bit out of place.

To feel 'out of place' is to feel that you are somewhere you don't know much about. So what is this event where she feels out of place?

I've never actually participated in a fundraising event so it should be good. I mean, this is for a neonatal ward. They're raising funds so it's for a good cause

It's a fundraising event for a good cause. Here, a 'good cause' is a worthy charity, in this case helping babies in hospital.

Indians have a lot of community spirit but I think in Australia it's different to that. In India it's more about festivals and celebrating joys and sorrows and there are lots of joined families in India so we, you know, live in big families so that our community spirit is more about the family. But in Australia I've seen that it's more about different people in different households coming together for a cause and helping each other out.

Notice that she said 'I've seen'. Seen is different to the irregular past tense 'saw'. It's the irregular past participle which you use with has or have - I have seen, I've seen. Another example is taken, from the verb take. The past tense is took and the past participle is taken - he realises she has taken it.

When I was in primary school we used to have to do this and for our Year 7 graduation it was part of the ceremony and we had to dance with all of our parents. It was very embarrassing at the time but I look back at it now and I thought actually it was really good.

To 'look back' at something here means to think about something in the past. Now listen for some other expressions about the past:

I think Suhasini went amazingly. I used to do this as a kid and, funnily enough, it's been a while and she was teaching me how to do things so she was amazing, yep.

'It's been a while' is short for it has been a while. It means she hasn't been to a bush dance for a long time. And things you 'used to' do are things you did in the past. Listen again:

I think Suhasini went amazingly. I used to do this as a kid and, funnily enough, it's been a while and she was teaching me how to do things so she was amazing, yep.

I learned a bit more about Aussie culture like I experienced barbecuing sausages, bush dancing, which they said they do in schools and, you know, they grew up with, and just dressing like this makes me feel a bit more Australian. But I had no idea what I was doing but it was fun.

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