As it so happens, my best friend was born and raised in Australia for eight years. When we were younger, we would consistently fight about what things were called and how they should be pronounced. She would say things like, “For Chrissie me mum and dad got me lots of prezzies!” I thought she was speaking another language. I thought she was mad because her parents got her “prezzies”, I wasn’t sure what those were or who Chrissie was, but I just let it go. Later I found out that prezzies means presents in Australia and Chrissie means Christmas. It took us a long time to figure out what she was trying to say. If I had my Australian Slang Guide, I would’ve been able to avoid a lot more arguments between us. We are really good friends now and sometimes she throws in random Australian Slang just to confuse me, but I’ve picked up on a few things.
Australians are speaking English, it’s just their slang is so different from what we are used to. If you are traveling to Australia, I highly suggest that you take an Aussie slang guide with you. It may save you from a lot of hassle and possible make you seem less like a tourist. The accents alone throw me off, adding the pressure of miss understanding or offending someone is pressure I don’t want to deal with during vacation. One very important thing to remember is the great “Australian Wave”. Apparently people in the country are constantly swatting the flies away by waving their hands in front of their faces, so sometimes it looks like they are waving at you. So it’s called the “Australian Wave”. Just don’t be surprised if someone says something to you or it looks like random people are waving at you. Don’t let the worry of messing up keep you from taking an amazing vacation to Australia.
1 comment:
First of all, I really love the places you guys pick to write about each week! I've always wanted to visit Australia and I can't wait to read all of your posts! But you are so right about the language barrier. I have a professor from Australia and he uses very strange words sometimes and has to explain what he's talking about. It's so weird because, like you said, they are just speaking English but their slang is so different! I liked your little bit of trivia about the Austrlian Wave, I had no idea! And that's a really good thing to know about before you go there!
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