Australian vs British SLANG | English Vocabulary and phrases with Lucy!

Video Transcript

Emma: 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!

Lucy: Hello! I’m Lucy from English With Lucy and I also have an English Channel.

Emma: 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!

Lucy: Yeah, surprise!

Emma: 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.

Emma : It was OK, but…

Lucy: You were pretty good actually!

Emma: Really?

Lucy: Yeah!

Emma: 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.

Lucy: I’m looking forward to it! Let’s get started!

Emma: 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.

Lucy: Arvo.. Is it like avocado?

Emma: No, that’s avo! What if I gave you an example? “I’ll see you this arvo!”

Lucy: Afternoon!

Emma: Yes! It’s really common “I’ll see you this arvo.”

Lucy: This arvo? God! I would have no idea if someone said that to me!

Emma: 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!

Lucy: Servo, bottle-o..

Emma: Arvo, avo..

Lucy: OK, is a bottle-o a bottle? Of wine?

Emma: It’s a bottle shop. So, if you’re going to go to the bottle-o, you would get wine!

Lucy: OK, so a bottle-o is the bottle shop…

Emma: Yeah… You guys call it an off-licence, don’t you?

Lucy: Off-licence, yes.

Emma: Yep.

Lucy: So, servo. Is that just like a normal shop?

Emma: No, it’s a service station. Like a petrol station. Yes!

Lucy: My Lord!

Emma: Servo. Add an ‘O’ to everything!

Lucy: OK, servo! Service Station!

Emma: Hot tip!

Lucy: Yeah, it makes sense! It makes sense!

Emma: OK, what’s next? We have… Oh, I think you’ll know this one, this one’s easy! A mate.

Lucy: It’s a friend! We actually use that the same. And we also like to imitate Australians by saying “G’day mate!”

Emma: If you were going to imitate an Australian, you’d be like, maaaaaate!

Lucy: Maaaaaate!

Emma: Now it’s perfect! OK, what if I said barbie?

Lucy: Barbecue!

Emma: OK, good. Next one is… What if I said I was going bush?

Lucy: Are you going out? To the countryside?

Emma: See how the English people say “we’re going to the countryside” and Australian people say “we’re going bush”!

Lucy: There’s no preposition or anything! You’re just going bush!

Emma: I think you probably know this one. It’s quite commonly known that we call these thongs.

Lucy: Flip-flops.

Emma: Yeah.

Lucy: Because thongs is a very skimpy women’s underwear.

Emma: Yes.

Lucy: So, what do you call thongs, the underwear ones?

Emma: G-strings.

Lucy: Oh yeah! G-strings! I remember I had to change my G string, on my violin!

Emma: What if I said I was going to have a durry?

Lucy: Is that a delicious curry?

Emma: No, no it’s not.

Lucy: Not just a curry, a delicious curry!

Emma: Not quite as good as a delicious curry!

Lucy: I’m going to have a durry… is it a poo?

Emma: No! But it sounds like it should be!

Lucy: I just think of diarrhoea! No idea!

Emma: It’s also… It could be a dart.

Lucy: A rush?

Emma: No! These are all words for, like a cigarette, slang word for a cigarette.

Lucy: You’d call a cigarette a durry? We call it a fag, a ciggy, as well.

Emma: A ciggy, a dart, a durry… Or a… the ones that you roll, rollie!

Lucy: A rollie, obviously. So, basically to speak Australian, you have to end everything in either ‘O’ or ‘E’…

Emma: Yeah, or ‘A’. Any vowel! Just just let it drift off!

Lucy: You just have to leave your mouth open!

Emma: A sanga.

Lucy: A sanga. I don’t know!

Emma: If I said I’m going to grab a sanga…

Lucy: Sandwich!

Emma: Yes! Sandwich is just sanga.

Lucy: I didn’t do too badly, did I?

Emma: 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!

Lucy: Thank you for testing me!

Emma: 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…

Lucy: She’s pretty good! Not perfect though!

Emma: 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 find me on Facebook and Instagram and 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!