How to Say Use English Abbreviations ASAP FOMO BTW FYI
Well hey there I’m Emma from mmmEnglish.
Today I’ve got an awesome lesson for you about
abbreviations.
Kind of a tricky word to say, isn’t it?
Abbreviation.
An abbreviation is a small group of letters
that represents a larger word or a larger phrase
and they’re often used in written English
but also in spoken English too.
All of the ones I’m sharing in this lesson are really
common. They’re used by native speakers in
formal situations but often
informally as well, in text messages, on internet forums.
Knowing these abbreviations will make communicating
so much easier for you and knowing how to say them
correctly will help you to be understood as well.
As usual, I’ve got a quiz for you at the end of this lesson
so stick around, test what you know
and put what you learn into practice.
FYI.
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Now of course, if you’ve been watching my channel
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So first up let’s start with some extremely common
everyday abbreviations that you really need to know.
Okay these are essential.
You’ve probably seen most of them before, maybe
in professional emails or formal invitations,
in other types of formal and informal writing.
You may have even heard some of them spoken.
If you’ve been wondering what they mean or how to say
them, this lesson is exactly what you need.
So let’s start with P.S.
Now it comes from the Latin words post scriptum,
which means written after so we use
P.S as an afterthought, to add something to a message
that you’ve forgotten to include.
It’s not usually spoken.
So back in the day, before computers
and text messages,
our grandparents used to write letters right?
Traditionally you’d write your letter,
then you’d sign your name at the end
but then you’d realise I forgot to include that.
There’s something else I wanted to add.
P.S. Mum said hello and she can’t wait to see you!
Another abbreviation that you’ll often see
at the end of a message is RSVP.
Now it’s been around for a long time and it will
probably continue to stay around for a long time
to come. It’s actually a French expression
and it stands for répondez s’il vous plaît
which simply means respond, please.
So we use it in English to ask for someone to
respond to an invitation.
In the past, you would have mostly seen it in
written invitations but these days you’ll see it in
emails, you’ll see it in online invitations too.
It’s really common.
If you’re invited to a wedding or a party or something
like that, then you’ll see it written at the bottom.
Please RSVP.
When you see RSVP,
you need to respond, you need to confirm
if you’re attending the event and if you’re not
attending the event, you still have to tell them.
Okay so they’re asking for you to respond.
If someone tells you to do something ASAP,
it means do it as soon as possible.
You’ll often hear it being used in professional context,
it’s really common in that setting. You might say
I’m really sorry for the delay.
I’ll get the report finished ASAP.
So yeah it’s used professionally, it’s also used
informally a lot as well and when it’s spoken
you may actually hear
the word being pronounced phonetically.
ASAP.
Can you call me back ASAP?
Or you’ll also hear each letter being spoken individually.
ASAP.
Can you call me back ASAP?
Both options are fine right.
Have you heard this one
or seen it written in an email before?
It’s also really common to see in a professional context
in email communication especially but actually
you might hear people say it too out loud.
It means for your information.
So use it when you want to add a little bit of
extra important information
alright something that you think that person
really would want to know.
FYI the ticket says it starts at 9am
but the speakers won’t actually be there until 10.
This one is the abbreviation of the word versus.
Versus.
That second syllable is unstressed okay.
Versus.
So when you see this and you want to say it
in spoken English, you always say the complete word,
you never say VS alright?
But you will hear some native speakers reduce it down
to just verse instead of versus.
So versus is commonly used when two things are
put up against each other so you see it a lot in sports
right? When there’s two teams playing each other.
Melbourne versus Sydney.
So ETA stands for estimated time of arrival
and it’s really commonly used to ask
what time someone is going to arrive.
What’s your ETA?
I’m about 10 minutes away.
Simple right? Really simple question.
It’s also used on schedules, you’ll see it written
sometimes, maybe at a train station
where it will say the train,
where it’s going to and it might say ETA next to it.
Next train from Paris
ETA eight minutes.
Estimated time of arrival, eight minutes.
So it’s often used in spoken and written English
but when you pronounce it out loud, you
pronounce the three letters ETA.
I could call you up over the phone and ask
What’s your ETA?
Or your boss might call you
and say exactly the same thing.
What time will you arrive here?
Have you heard or even seen this one used before?
You’re going to see it a lot online in
magazines, in books and blogs, that kind of thing.
It stands for do it yourself
and it is referring to home projects,
home repairs and crafts,
things that you do yourself by hand
instead of buying something that’s already been
made or paying a professional to come and do it for you
So you might see DIY kitchens,
DIY flower beds, DIY craft projects.
What it means is it’s simply a project that you do
at home yourself.
As you’ve been listening to me talk about it though,
I’m sure you’ve picked up that the way that we say this
word is by spelling out the letters, DIY.
So are you into DIY projects?
Maybe you’ve been working
on a few things during lockdown.
Wi-fi is another really, really common one,
one that my students often mispronounce
by saying whiffy which
actually sounds a little bit like a very informal word
for kind of smelly, whiffy.
You know I often see non-native English speakers
asking for wi-fi in hotel receptions
or at information desks
and the response or the reaction that they get is
kind of confused.
Wi-fi? What is that?
It’s wi-fi.
This is my favourite one.
This abbreviation came from the internet but
it’s become pretty mainstream now, it’s very common
even in offline situations.
It’s actually officially been added to the dictionary.
And it stands for fear of missing out.
And when we use it, we usually say that we have FOMO
or he has FOMO.
So think about when you’re scrolling through Instagram
or Facebook or Youtube or whatever,
you get to see all these amazing things that everyone’s
doing, right? People on holidays, on amazing hikes,
winning awards, graduating,
all of these awesome things.
And do you ever catch yourself feeling a little sad
or a little depressed that you’re missing out?
That you’re not doing those things?
It’s the worst thing about social media
but that feeling is FOMO.
It’s fear of missing out.
It’s a feeling of missing out, of not having those things
as well but like I said now it’s really used
more generally just to talk about that
feeling of anxiety when you worry about
missing out on important things or on fun social events.
I usually say yes to everything
even if I’m tired or I’m feeling lazy because
I really can’t stand having FOMO!
I hate missing out.
So next up I’ve got some newer internet
abbreviations that you probably should know
even if you don’t use them a lot yourself,
it’s good to be able to recognise them and know
what’s going on, right?
So you’ll see them mostly in informal situations
on the internet, text messages, on social media,
that kind of thing.
Before we keep going here, I
just want to take a moment to
get something off my chest, make it really clear
that using FOMO and any of the abbreviations
that I’m about to mention
are not really appropriate in
very formal or professional contexts unless
you consider your colleague to be a really good friend
or something like that
because in most formal contexts,
using these abbreviations sends a different message
subtly, a message like
I can’t really be bothered
or I don’t have enough time for you.
So I just want you to be careful with
how you’re using these abbreviations.
Wherever you can
just use the full word or the full expression.
Anyway we’re going to see what you already know by
doing a quick little quiz or a little game.
So for each abbreviation you’ll see on screen,
I’m going to give you three different options for what it
might mean. I want you to guess the correct answer
so take a pen and paper out right now,
write down your answers, tell me how many you get
right down in the comments okay. I want to see
how good you are.
Let’s start with this one here.
So does this abbreviation stand for too young,
thank you
or talked yesterday?
Kind of easy. It does mean thank you
and sometimes depending on where you are
in the world, this will also be written as TQ
or TKS
but I literally hate this abbreviation, please don’t use it.
If you are actually thankful,
then just write the extra couple of letters
to write the full word alright? It just shows people
that you really actually do appreciate them.
Alright so does this one mean
be right back,
burnt really badly or
but really beautiful?
So this one comes from the early days of internet
chatting when someone needed to step away from
their computer for a little bit,
just for a few minutes and they would write BRB
as in be right back.
It’s still often used today in text and group chats
especially but when spoken it’s never really said
BRB, just say be right back.
So this one is super common.
Does it mean by the way,
but then what or
bring the wine?
It means by the way
although maybe C is a good option too.
By the way.
So mostly you see this in text messages
when people are writing ideas really quickly
but you might even hear people say this one
out loud in informal situations, BTW.
BTW, I’m taking a break for 10 minutes. See you soon.
Actually, that just reminded me of BYO.
I forgot to mention it earlier, it’s a really, really
common one that you’ll often see at restaurants
and it means bring your own.
Usually it’s referring to alcoholic drinks. So
bring your own wine, bring your own beer
because we don’t
serve it in the restaurant.
But you know maybe when you’re going to
a barbecue in a park with friends they might say
BYO meat or BYO drinks
or that kind of thing, bring your own.
Alright this one is very recent, it’s new.
Does it mean time for the meeting,
too much information or
type more information.
So it stands for too much information.
So let’s think about a friend who might
tell you a little bit too much information right,
too much personal information, too much detail
that’s kind of awkward or disgusting.
Then you might say
TMI, I didn’t need to hear that!
Alright another very, very common one,
the best hamburger,
this is boring
or to be honest.
It’s definitely a really useful one to know,
it’s used really frequently even
in some online magazines and blogs and things now
but it means to be honest.
To be honest, I don’t think it’s the best burger in town.
Again, when it’s spoken,
it’s spoken as full words not TBH.
In my office,
it’s more obvious
or in my opinion.
Yeah this is in my opinion.
The band was great but the food wasn’t very good,
in my opinion.
Another very new one but an important one to know.
In real life,
I really like
or I rarely lie.
What do you think?
So we use this one to separate real life from things that
happen online in movies or on social media
and that kind of thing. It means in real life.
They play video games together online but they’ve
never met in real life.
Again, don’t use the letters as the abbreviation
when you speak, when you speak just say the full words.
She’s my hero,
shaking my head
or somebody might hear.
Did you get it? Shaking my head
but what does that actually mean?
So in real life, we shake our head right like this
to show that we disapprove or we can’t believe
something right so this is the texting form of this action.
So if you texted me and you said
I just dropped my phone in the toilet!
I could respond with
Shaking my head.
So how did you go with this little quiz?
Did you know any of them? Some of them?
Maybe you knew most of them or all of them
in which case, I’m super impressed. I really hope that
this video helps to inspire you to use them or to
feel more comfortable
when you see and you read or you hear
these different abbreviations used in English.
If there’s anything that this lesson has revealed for us,
it’s that English is always changing and evolving.
There’s new ideas, new ways of expressing yourself
happening all of the time. You’ll always be learning
new ways of expressing yourself
and hear people expressing themselves differently
and so will I.
It’s the same for me, I definitely learned a few new ways
to express myself whilst researching for this lesson.
So tell me how did you go down in the comments,
which ones did you get right or wrong?
Are there any other abbreviations that
you can think of that I maybe didn’t include in this
lesson or maybe there’s some other ones that are
used often in your own native language that you think
we should be using in English.
Definitely share those in the comments down below
but right now I’ve got another lesson
right here waiting for you.
I’ll see you in there!