Australian vs British SLANG English Vocabulary and phrases with Lucy
Hi everyone! Welcome to another mmmEnglish video.
I am here in London and I have just
run into another lovely English teacher
YouTube English teacher - it’s Lucy!
Hello! I’m Lucy from English With Lucy and I
also have an English Channel.
I’m sure that a lot of my viewers also
actually subscribe to you so I’m sure
they’ll be very excited to see us together!
Yeah, surprise! So some of you might have
already seen the video that we made
together on Lucy’s channel that was all
about British slang words and Lucy
tested me to see how good my knowledge
was of British slang.
It was OK, but… [You were pretty good actually!]
Really? [Yeah!]
Well, right now in this video I’m going to be
testing your knowledge of Australian
slang, which is where I’m from.
I’m holidaying in London and Lucy’s from London, but I’m
originally from Australia.
[I’m looking forward to it! Let’s get started!]
OK, let’s get going!
I’ve got my list here! So, the first one that I’m
going to ask you about is ‘arvo’,
‘arvo’, ‘arvo’, ‘arvo’. Is it like avocado?
No, that’s ‘avo’! What if i gave you an
example? “I’ll see you this arvo!”
Afternoon!
Yes! It’s really common “I’ll see you this arvo.”
God! I would have no idea is someone said that to me!
OK, let’s go another one! Let’s talk about
a ‘servo’. And in the same way we have a
slang word that’s called ‘bottle-o’.
Just add an ‘O’ to everything in Australia!
‘Servo’…
‘bottle-o’ [‘arvo’, ‘avo’]. OK, is a ‘bottle-o’ a bottle? Of wine?
It’s a bottle shop. So, if you’re going to
go to the ‘bottle-o’, you would get wine!
OK, so a ‘bottle-o’ is the bottle shop…
Yeah… You guys call it an off-licence, don’t you?
[Off-licence, yes.]
Um… So, ‘servo’. Is that just like a
normal shop?
No, it’s a service station. Like a petrol station
Yes! ‘Servo’ [My Lord!]
Add an ‘O’ to everything!
OK, ‘servo’! Service Station! [Hot tip!] Yeah, it makes sense! It makes sense!
OK, what’s next? We have… Oh, I think you’ll know this one, this one’s easy!
A mate.
It’s a friend! We actually use that the same.
And we also like to imitate Australians by saying ‘G’day mate!’
‘G’day mate!’
If you were going to imitate an Australian,
you’d be like, ‘maaaaaate’!
That’s perfect!
OK, ‘barbie’
Barbecue! OK, good.
Next one is… What if i said i was going
bush?
Are you going out? To the countryside?
See how the English people
say “we’re going to the countryside” and
Australian people say “we’re going bush”!
There’s no preposition or anything! You’re just going
bush!I think you probably know this one. It’s quite
commonly known that we call these
‘thongs’
Flip-flops
Yeah.
Because thongs is very skimpy
women’s underwear.
Yes.
So, what do you call thongs (the underware ones)?
Ummm… G-strings.
Oh yeah! G-strings! I remember I
had to change my G string, on my violin!
What if i said i was going to have a
‘durry’?
Is that a delicious curry?
No, no it’s not.
Not just a curry, a delicious curry!
Not quite as good as a delicious curry!
I’m going to have a ‘durry’…
No! But it sounds like it should be!
[I just think of diarrhoea!] No idea!
It’s also… It could be a ‘dart’. [A rush?] No! These are
all words for, like a cigarette, slang
word for a cigarette.
You’d call a cigarette a ‘durry’? We’d call it a
‘fag’, a ‘ciggy’!
Or a… [umm] the ones that you roll: ‘rollies’!
So, basically to speak Australian, you have to
end everything in either ‘O’ or ‘E’
Yeah, or ‘A’.
Any vowel! Just just let it drift off!
You just have to leave your mouth open!
A ‘sanga’.
A ‘sanga’. I don’t know!
If I said I’m going to grab a ‘sanga’…
Sandwich!
Yes! Sandwich is just ‘sanga’.
I didn’t do too badly, did I?
No, not at all! You actually did
better than I expected,
so well done! So, that was Australian slang.
Thank you, Lucy for helping me out that one!
Thank you for testing me!
Well, you did
OK! If you are interested to learn a
bit more about British slang, you can
check out the video on Lucy’s channel that
we made together where she tested me on
my skills with British slang, so…
She’s pretty good!
Not perfect though!
[Hmm]… but the link to Lucy’s channel is
just underneath this video in the description
Of course I’d love you to
subscribe to my channel! You can also
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check out the website
mmmEnglish.com for my English
pronunciation and conversation training courses.
Thanks for joining us everyone and we
will see you very soon! Bye!