Aussie Construction Site English: How Much of the Foreman Can You Understand? (Working Holiday Site Job Prep Test)

I've driven rollers, moxies, bobcats and excavators on Aussie sites.
But when I played a site English game built from real foreman talk, I only scored 4OOO points.
I thought I could follow everything on site by reading the situation, but reacting straight away to sound alone? I got way more wrong than I expected.

When you start working on an Aussie site, English is the first thing that trips you up.
Your textbook English might be fine, but what the foreman fires at you over the radio or across the site sounds completely different.

"Chuck🔒 us the shovel."
"Back her up a bit."
"Lid on, mate."

You hear all three of these on site every day, but at first I couldn't catch a single one.
So I made a game where you can practise with real foreman talk taken from recordings on actual Aussie sites.

What's the game?

Dave the foreman gives you an instruction in English, and you hit the button for the right action.
Get it right and the machine does exactly that. Get it wrong and there's an accident: the excavator smashes the truck, or the crane slams into the pipe stack.
Three mistakes and you're sent home, and the time limit gets shorter as you go.

There are 8 sites.

• Excavator: load dirt into a truck, swap between the ripper, 300 and 600 buckets
• Bobcat: scoop dirt into a skip, switch to forks and move pallets
• Crane: move pipes following the dogman's signals
• Dump truck: reverse and tip following the spotter's signals
• Roller: compact the road (vibration on and off)
• Tool runs: grab the tools the foreman asks for
• Safety & daily routine: hard hats, hi-vis vests, even smoko (break time)
• Traffic control: hold the STOP/SLOW sign and stop the cars

The kind of lines you'll hear

Excavator

• "Chuck🔒 the 300 on, it's a narrow trench." → It's a narrow trench, put the 300 bucket on
• "Get stuck into it." → Start digging properly (get stuck into = throw yourself into something)

Bobcat

• "Crowd it back." → Curl the bucket in
• "Swap to the forks🔒, mate." → Change over to the forks

Dump truck

• "Left hand down a bit." → Turn the wheel a little to the left

Crane

• "Lower away." → Start lowering

Safety & daily routine

• "BELOW!" → Something's falling from above. Don't look up, get out of the way
• "Smoko!" → Break time!

When you get one wrong, it shows you what the line means straight away, and at the end of each round you can go back over just the ones you missed.

Partway through, he starts calling names

On site, the foreman gives instructions to several people at once.
So in the game, from the 6th instruction on, he calls out names.
If he says "Jobi!", that's you, so do it. If he says "Woody!" or "Pete!", he's talking to someone else, so the right answer is to stay put.
This is the most confusing part on a real site, so I put it in on purpose.

Rankings and the Daily Challenge

There's a weekly ranking for each site, plus a 'Daily Challenge' where everyone competes on the same site each day.
Once you get your score, you can save your results image or send a challenge to a friend.

Give it a go

It's free and you don't need to sign up. Turn your sound on before you start.

🎮 Play the site English game (free) →

If you're getting ready for a site job on your working holiday, have a round before you go. Catch more than 15 and you'll get a certificate.
If you're already working on site, you'll need to beat my 4OOO points. Let me know your score in the comments.
The machine names and phrases from the game are explained in more detail in the site-by-site guides on Jobi.