How to speak Australian on your next trip down under

There seems to be quite a few of members travelling to Australia soon so I thought I would introduce you to some “Aussie Lingo” to help you navigate some of our crazy but wonderful slang. It’s all true, we do speak like this :joy::australia:

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Boguns!!! :rofl:

Totally come to Straya!

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Hahaha he’s hilarious that guy :rofl: Yep definitely come to Straya, totally safe! :laughing::joy::rofl:

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lol. Sometimes I have to force my accent as we rarely get pegged for being Aussies and get accused of being Poms :flushed: or yanks :roll_eyes: but being OS so much I love hearing an Australian accent in the wild.

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@Oztravels yes, after being away for so long now, my accent is usually mistaken for a pom or something else. I think it’s because as we travel, we tend to slow our speech down so people can understand us as Aussies do talk rather fast and slangy lol I get rather excited when I do hear that Aussie drawl :laughing:

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I’m going to have an avo for brekky

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I love this

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I can see your time in Oz has been put to good use @Smiley :laughing:

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@Smiley you risk being labelled a bogun! :rofl:

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@smiley I haven’t said “breakfast” for decades it’s always been “what’s for brekky?”

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@Oztravels we always get mistaken for South African in the UK or Kiwis

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I only know two Australian words, sunnies and Sheila :grinning:

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@CRU sunnies very common for sure. Thank goodness sheila isn’t so commonly used anymore, unless said by complete total bogans :laughing:

What’s that?

We say brekkie in the UK too

Thanks for sharing the video, @ziggy. Fun.

I don’t remember having trouble understanding or being understood while visiting. But I remember when I worked in news and had to talk to Aussie emergency folks or officials, it was funny how they’d refer to the names of places or street names with aboriginal origins and it sounded like nothing recognizable to foreigners and they’d have say seven syllables. And no one would spell them out automatically, so we’d have to ask and ask for repeats to make sure we didn’t goof.

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@Smiley An Aussie bogun is easy to pick but hard to explain to non Australians. It’s not meant as a compliment to be called a bogun! The closest in the UK might be a chav but still not the same. Some Aussies are very proud of their boguness!

To avoid upsetting people, the easiest explaination is this wiki definition.

Bogan (/ˈboʊɡən/ BOHG-ən[1]) is Australian and New Zealand slang for a person whose speech, clothing, attitude and behaviour are considered unrefined or unsophisticated. Depending on the context, the term can be pejorative or self-deprecating.[2] The prevalence of the term bogan has also been associated with changing social attitudes towards social class in Australia.

Melbourne street art of a stereotypical male bogan. He is depicted as a repulsive character with a cigarette in his mouth. It has antecedents in the Australian larrikin and ocker, and various localised names exist that describe the same or very similar people to the bogan.

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That reminds me of the time I was in Bundaberg area in an uber cab on my way to pick up a car I was hiring. The driver had the radio on and they were seriously warning people of certain areas to leave home as soon as possible and to not use certain roads because of a wild fire. I was only able to understand a couple of names. I got so scared at the thought of unknowingly driving myself into danger that I just didn’t hire the car and kept using uber.

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From a “seppo” who went to “uni” in Wollongong and lived in Oz for 3y, I regularly invoke “Slip, slap, slop” into my summer vocabulary.

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We’ve sat in Western Australia a few times and the locals laughed when we said Freemantle, they said ‘oh, you mean Freeo’.

(UK sitters that are usually in Australia now for 4-5 months but are in Essex, England regretting agreeing to stay here this Xmas :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:).

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