How to speak Australian #1

Hello from the beautiful land of Oz!

We are in Autumn and the weather has been really beautiful. Highs in the 60s F, lows in the 40-50s F at night. It is a little weird to be heading into the end of May and have such nice temperatures when in Texas, they are already starting to sweat with the heat and drought conditions. I hope that the heat in Texas now does not mean for a sweltering July and August.

We have also finished the first term of the school year and are just beyond a couple of weeks into the second term, the next 2 week break starts July 1st. The college (or uni as they call it here) term is also coming to an end, we have one more week of class, then a dead week for studying, then finals. Then there is about a 2 week break and the Spring term starts at the end of July.

This post is going to be geared towards a few things I have learned about speaking Australian. This will be an on-going series as we learn more and more each week. I will try to give you the American version and the Aussie version and some context if it is needed.

American Version Aussie version

Hello G'day (they really do say it!)

How ya doing? How ya going?

Good for you Good on ya

Apostrophe Inverted comma (I admit it took me a while to figure that out)

Thanks or Thank you Ta (remember I said Aussies shorten everything)

Kindergarten Kindy

See ya later Cheers

Breakfast brekkie

Burger King Hungry Jacks (Same company, different name)

Muffin with chocolate in the middle Mud muffin (available at McDonalds)

McDonalds/Mickey D's Maccas (slang for McDonalds)

Excited/Interested Keen (example "We are really keen to see how ya go" would be the Aussie version of "We are really excited to see what happens")

Truck Ute (as in utility vehicle, but generally more like an El Camino than a truck)

GM Car Holden

Festival Fete

Raffle Chocolate Wheel (has nothing to do with chocolate...so deceiving!)

Markers Texters (pronounced Textas)

Erasers Rubber

renovation reno

air conditioner air con (although most houses do not have central a/c or heat

Dryers clotheslines (most Aussies use clothes lines, not dryers)

dishwasher The name of the person doing the dishes, most houses do not have dish washers (at least from what I can tell)

faucet a tap

doorbell Aussies houses just don't have them, it is very rare and the one place that had one, didn't work!

apartment flat

downtown CBD Central business district

learned learnt

Dollar Store Cheap Shop or Reject Shop, except everything is far more than a dollar

Kool Aid (kinda) Cordial (It is a liquid concentrate that you add water to, they don't have kool aid here unless you want to pay $18 for a small cannister)

Lemonade Lemon Squash (it is so good!)

Sprite lemonade

It can take a while to get used to their verbiage and their accent but I can understand almost everything now. I can also understand the British and Irish accents better now too since they are very similar and there are lots of Brits here too. Much of the language is a carry over of the British, but the Aussies are lazy in their speech (their words, not mine) and tend to shorten words, cut them off, and they don't really pronounce their Rs. Rs are pronounces with an a sound, like my name Heather sounds more like Heath-ah.

It's a lovely accent and it is fun to learn all their ways of saying things. There will be much more to come!

Heather