Australian Slang Real Life English Vocabulary and Common Expressions
This video is one that you’ve been asking me for
for a long time!
I’m Emma from mmmEnglish,
here to share some very common,
very Australian expressions with you.
If you are living in Australia or
planning to visit Australia in the future
and plan to chat with some locals while you’re here,
you’re going to have to learn
some of the local slang expressions
and get used to listening to
an Australian English accent.
If you don’t already know, I’m from Australia,
a very big, very beautiful island underneath you
or to the east or the west of you.
Now, my Australian English is
an English teachers version of Australian English,
so I thought it would be useful to get some
real Australian accents on here
just to show you what it’s like.
So I’ve asked a few friends to think of some common
Australian expressions that they use all the time
and then try to explain them for you.
It’s going to seem like a bit of a random collection
of expressions because I asked
them to think of ones that they use.
But they are super useful and they’re used every day!
Ready?
Let me first introduce you to Ben.
Now you’ve actually met Ben before in this video here.
I often say “What are you doing this arvo?”
which means, well it’s a compressed way of saying
“What are you doing this afternoon?”
Thanks Ben! that was a pretty good explanation.
This afternoon is very often spoken by Australians as
“This arvo” or even “sarvo”.
Arvo is used in spoke English only
and that goes for most of the expressions in this video.
They’re informal and they’re mostly used in
spoken English.
And Australians like to shorten words
as much as possible.
Arvo.
Avo. Ambo.
Servo.
Barbie.
Sanga.
Kanga.
Blowie.
Footy.
Mozzie.
Bottle-o.
And it just goes on and on!
That’s where arvo comes from.
And then there’s the link between the words, this
and arvo.
And this happens all the time in spoken English
for all native speakers
who are speaking at a natural pace
no matter where they come from.
Words that end in a consonant sound are often linked
to the following word,
if it starts with a vowel sound.
I’m a little hungry.
I’m a
I’m a little hungry.
Keep it together.
Keep it together.
Keep it together.
So that’s why this and arvo
sound like they’re smashed together this.
This arvo.
This arvo.
This arvo. This arvo. This arvo.
We’re having some mates around for a barbie ‘sarvo,
you should come!
You can also hear arvo on its own.
I’ll pick it up on Wednesday arvo.
Let’s move on.
She’ll be right.
Where would I use “she’ll be right”?
Any time that something looks like
it’s going to go wrong
or you’re in doubt or
any uncertainty.
Yes!
And you’re just like “nah it’ll be fine”
but instead you just go “she’ll be right”.
Mate
add a “mate” on the end.
Mate is
that extra convincer. It just reassures everyone
she’ll be right mate.
Like Jess said, this expression is used all the time
when you’re trying to convince yourself or someone else
that everything will be okay.
It’s the equivalent of saying “don’t worry about it”
or “it’ll be fine”
The car feels a little strange,
I hope we don’t have a flat tire.
She’ll be right,
there’s only ten K’s to go.
The trick with this expression is that ‘she’ as a pronoun
doesn’t always refer to a woman or a girl.
Most of the time, yes it does,
but sometimes you’ll hear people refer to objects
as she - it’s just something to keep in mind
particularly for this expression.
Here, she is referring to the tire
or even to the situation in general.
So let’s hear a few common ways that Australians talk
positively about something. Here’s Ali.
I say either it’ll be ace
or I’ve had a ripper of a time!
It’s a great thing. If you have a ripper,
yeah a ripper, a ripper of a time, you’ve had a great time
like it’s it’s up here.
Yeah.
And the good time’s probably here and a ripper of a time
and an ace time is like
like maybe a little bit lower.
Okay so all of these expressions are used to say
that something is really great.
Note that ace is an adjective, it could be used
to describe people, things, experiences.
Ripper can be an adjective too!
I’ve had a ripper day!
But it can also be used in this
fixed expression as a noun.
A ripper of a time.
How was your trip?
It was ace! We had a ripper of a time!
We just hung out on the beach all day!
Now when Ali and Jess were using their hands to show
how great these expressions were,
they were explaining the degree of greatness.
So according to them,
a great time is here and an ace time is here
and a ripper of a time is here.
I guess that might be true!
Australians, what do you think?
Is a ripper better than ace?
I think so.
Meet Tom.
Now Tom is a tradesman and tradesmen work in trades.
They build things and they fix things.
Here in Australia it’s really common to hear
the abbreviated names of these jobs.
The shortened version
because we Australians love to make words shorter.
Say out of all the tradies, which is a tradesman,
tradies, you got your chippies - which is a carpenter -
sparkys - which is an electrician -
the brickies - which are bricklayers.
Did you get that?
He’s referring to people’s jobs. A tradie is a tradesman.
A chippy is a carpenter.
Someone who workswith wood.
A sparky is an electrician.
A brickie is a bricklayer.
Probably the other best part of the day
is where we knock off.
Finish. Get on the piss,
which is like you go have a beer.
Knock off and get on the piss.
Not distinctly Australian expressions there
but ones that you will definitely hear
when you’re speaking to Australians.
Unfortunately.
Knock off is to finish work for the day.
What time do you knock off?
I’ll knock off early so we can go to the cinema.
To get or to be on the piss means to drink alcohol
and usually quite a lot of it.
One glass of wine is not “getting on the piss”.
Drinking ten beers is definitely on the piss.
Now this is not really
a pleasant way to describe this activity.
It’s very, very informal and used only amongst friends
but for goodness sake’s please don’t tell your boss
that that’s what you’re doing on a Tuesday night.
Tell your boss you’re meeting a friend for a drink.
But then when you’re talking to your friend you could say
let’s get on the piss.
That would be letting them know that you were
interested in drinking a lot that night.
Where’s Sam?
It’s Friday, he’ll be on the piss with his mates.
Please don’t tell anyone you learnt that from me,
you learnt it from Tom.
I’ve got a few mates who often chuck a sickie
which means when you can’t be bothered going to work,
they pretend to be sick and they tell their boss,
well they tell them I’m sick,
but they’re really chucking a sickie.
Okay this is a good one, every Australian watching
has definitely chucked a sickie
at least at some time in the past.
And you might have done it as well.
So this is when you tell your boss
that you’re unwell
and that you need to take the day off work.
But really you just want to do something more fun
like go to the beach or maybe the night before,
you went out and you partied too hard
and you can’t be bothered, you feel lazy.
So in Australian slang
you can say that you chucked a sickie.
Your new friends here might try and convince you to go
camping with them one long weekend.
Come with us!
You can just chuck a sickie on Monday!
The weather is so good today,
I think we’ll just chuck a sickie and go to the beach.
Also check out how Ben said Australia.
Not in Australia anyway. Not in Australia anyway.
Not in Australia anyway.
This is literally what Australia sounds like
when Australians say it.
Let’s get back to the girls.
Take it easy. Yeah.
If you’re too keen, too excited.
When else do you use it? Like if you, just like,
I’m going to take it easy.
Too much.
But then you can also tell someone if they’re like
angry or like
too like, erratic.
Just say like whoa take it easy.
Take it easy is not strictly Australian.
You’ll hear it said by lots of different
native English speakers
but it does have a few different meanings
like Jess suggested.
It can mean relax,
to do nothing, just rest or chill out.
What are you doing on the weekend?
Nothing much, just taking it easy.
Or it can mean calm down
so if someone is getting angry or upset
or they’re too energetic,
then you can say,
hey, take it easy, Sam.
Stop yelling, tell me what’s wrong.
Okay we’re just going to deal with the shrimp thing
right now.
You probably think that we say
“Chuck another shrimp on the barbie!” all the time.
No!
In Australia, this
is not a shrimp.
It’s a prawn.
We never say shrimp,
you’ll never hear an Australian say shrimp.
But barbie is slang for barbecue
and you’ll hear people say that all the time!
Come round to our place for a Barbie on Sunday.
That just means come around to our house for dinner.
A dinner that we’re cooking on the barbecue.
So there you have it,
a collection of Australian expressions by Australians.
Thanks to all of my awesome Aussie mates
who helped to make this video.
That’s just a little taste of the type of English
that you can expect down here in Australia.
Have a prawn off the barbie.
Chuck another prawn on the barbie.
Yeah, cut to me.
Well, I’m gonna play cricket, I bowl a few rips and orders
or a couple of ring-a-ding-dinggers.
Yeah I don’t have to explain it,
you have to have like the words come on.
Sorry mate. Typical tradies, though,
I’m a chippy, you know, all the tradies get to work,
smocko, knock off, get on the piss.
Take it easy, take it back a notch,
just wind it down over there, just keep going.
How do I speak in slang?
Do you know what though? I reckon we nailed this.
Don’t forget to subscribe
and check out some of my other more
serious English grammar lessons over there.
Thanks for watching, I’ll see you soon.