What I Spend In A Month In Sydney
A2 English listening practice · American English · Curated for beginners
Why is public transport so cheap in Sydney?
Sydney’s public-transport system uses a tap-on, tap-off card called the Opal card. The card has a weekly cap: once a rider has paid for a set number of trips in a single week (eight, on adult fares), all further travel that week is free. Sundays also have a special $2.50 day cap (or $3.20 in some periods), so a full Sunday of trains, buses, ferries, and light rail across Sydney costs about the price of a coffee. Tourists and budget-conscious locals plan whole weekends around it.
In this clip, a Sydney-based day trader breaks down monthly expenses and notes “public transport was $15”, a number only possible thanks to the Opal cap.
Vocabulary frequency
How common is the vocabulary in this A2 English listening practice listening practice?
General English frequency
Spoken English frequency
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-US 2012 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.
- ▸In Sydney transport content from Transport for NSW
- ▸In Australian budget-living YouTube and TikTok
- ▸In Sydney tourism guides (Time Out Sydney, Lonely Planet)
- ▸In Australian student-life and backpacker blogs
- ▸In Sydney commuter forums and Reddit (r/sydney)