Everyday British Slang for English Learners

(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi and welcome to the 3 English Experts. I'm Birgit. I'm Dave. And I'm Rebecca. And welcome to this episode. 3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey. Okay, hi everybody and welcome to this episode. Today is the 1st of April. So what a better day when we record this, of course, is the 1st of April. So what a better day than to have a bit of a fun one and talk about British slang. Before we go there, we've had some amazing download numbers in the last few months. We're very happy with that. And we'd like to ask you if you get any kind of value from what we produce, just to go down to the bottom and give us a star rating on Spotify or Apple. It takes you 2 seconds and it gives us a lot of love and it helps us out. So we would very, very much appreciate it to all of you listening and getting value from us. So back to the topic, British slang. That's what we're talking about today. And Rebecca, our other native Brit, is going to kick off with a few phrases. And as always, we're going to shout around and talk about the different words and phrases between us. And hopefully you'll be able to find out one or two new ones for your next trip to Britain. Rebecca. Yes, hello everybody. So I'm going to kick off. They're all very short. These, I'm looking at the list here and they're not complicated. It doesn't have to be complicated, but they are all quite useful, actually, I would say. And some of them are just fun. So first one on the list is all right. All right. All right. All right. All right. Is this classic. What's up. It's like saying what's up. It's just all right. And it goes up at the end. So the intonation you have to go up. It's not all right. It's all right. Because it's a question. And it means, are you all right? It's all right. Are you okay? Begates. Alles klar. Kind of thing. You can always use that when you meet someone. All right. All right. And then your answer is yeah. All right. You kind of just answer with yes. All right. Yeah. All right. Yeah. I'm all right. It is kind of slang. How many times can we say all right? How many times can we say it? I'm just repeating. So it's very clear what we're saying. The second one on the list is mate. Now, I think a lot of people know mates. He's my mate or she's my mate. You might know it from like flatmates. I had a flatmate. People seem to know that just means your couple, your friend. I think in the past it was mainly men that use this. They would say, oh, I'm going out with my mates. But actually, girls, I call my mates my mates as well. You can use it as a female. It doesn't matter. Would you say that's common, Begate? You would know mates, right? Yeah. Hello, everybody. And I heard that a lot when I was in England, mate. Yeah. Everybody said that. I have a question with the all right. You couldn't use that in the right to sound native. You couldn't use that in an email. So that's really no communication. People think that they could write it. No, no, no. That's no, no. It's really spoken. It's casual. All right. You generally use it with people, you know. I don't know. All right. You could say it in a pub or something, but it was generally with greeting your friends. Mate, people say mate, even if they don't know you, though. All right, mate. Yeah. I heard that a lot. Mate. Yeah. It's just like kumpel. Yeah. It's a nice way of greeting someone. Yeah. I think it's very friendly. Fun fact, it's also, of course, what the Australians use. So the Australians would say, g'day, mate. G'day, mate. So the Australians and the New Zealanders, the Kiwis, they both use that. The Americans don't usually. I guess they still use buddy, but they may. Americans out there, I don't know. Or they use pal, right? Like PayPal. PayPal. Yeah. Maybe they do actually say pal rather than mate. We use pal as well, don't we? Quite a lot. I wouldn't say that so much, to be honest. Oh, really? I think that's a bit American. I didn't hear that when I was 30 years ago. PayPal. Okay. Next one is quite a useful one. And it's one that people get confused with because cheers. A lot of people know cheers is obviously when you're having a pint, you're having a drink and you say cheers. But it also does mean a lot of other things. So it just means thank you. Cheers. Thanks. You see it in email sometimes. You can write it in an email as a short thanks. It can also just be like goodbye, like cheers. See you later. Cheers. Bye. It doesn't always mean host. It can mean other things. You hear that so often in the country. You do. Yeah, you do. I think that was three. I'm supposed to have five. So I'm going to take this one. I like this one. Faff about to faff. F-A-F-F about means like perumtrödel. Also a cool German word. I like that word. You're lucky you can pronounce that, Rebecca. I can't pronounce that very well. No, no, no, no. Yeah. I love that. It's a cool word to faff about. You would say, oh, stop faffing about. Yeah. Or you say, oh, I'm sorry, I'm faffing. I'm faffing about. It means like I'm not focused. I'm not concentrated. I'm sort of wasting time and I know what I'm doing. I'm just faffing about. Stop faffing about and let's go. You know, that's a good one to faff. And the last one I'm going to take is the one which Birgit was like, what on earth is this? Bob's your uncle. Never heard that. Bob's your uncle is schwuppdiwupp, I think, in German, which I also like. Schwuppdiwupp. Bob's your uncle. Schwuppdiwupp. So you do this and you do that and Bob's your uncle. You've made your cocktail. Yeah, you've done it. It's finished. Add this, add that and schwuppdiwupp. Bob's your uncle. You've got a perfect cake or something. Have you any idea where that comes from? I do not know why Bob is your uncle and it is Bob the person. Yeah, I was going to say it's Bob. Yeah. I don't know. It's schwuppdiwupp. It's a bit old fashioned, isn't it? I cannot imagine or I cannot remember when I said that last time. Yeah, I think my old ladies, when I used to work in the Altenheim, when I was a volunteer, I think they used to say schwuppdiwupp. I think it was a bit of an old lady phrase. I love it. I love it. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. It's nice, isn't it? Schwuppdiwupp. Yeah. Bob's your uncle. Yeah, easy to remember because it's so unusual. Bob's your uncle. Yeah. Yeah, it's a funny one. Okay, Dave, are you going next? Are you going to choose some of yours on your list? Well, before I move on to my list, one from your list, which I often have from a cultural perspective, is this word banter. Because I think it's very important that people understand the word banter. Maybe not because of their knowing the word banter, but the fact that Brits do this all the time. And sometimes people wonder why people aren't offended. So banter basically means playful joking. In German, you would say neckerei, if my pronunciation is good. Is that the right word? Neckerei? I think so. Yeah. Was ist neck, das liebt sich. So that's sort of you're really offending somebody. But banter could be with anybody, with a coworker or something. Yeah. We had another word, Birgit. Do you remember? I had it in the newsletter because I talked about banter because they have this in Ireland. And you came up with a good word. Oh, I'll think about that. Give me a second. Well, anyway, I think this is a very important thing just to know the concept. Like in Ireland, the banter is good. So good banter, it means you're having good fun, playing jokes on each other. April Fool's Day. Sometimes you say, call somebody a name or call somebody a bad name, use a swear word for them. But it's not really meant in an insulting way. But maybe an outsider thinks, why is he saying that to his friend? This kind of thing. What about scherzen or geplänkel? Geplänkel, that was it. I knew there was a cool word for it. Yeah. Yes, geplänkel. And you would just say, oh, it's just banter. Don't worry, it's just banter. It's nothing serious. Yeah, it's not serious. But people may think that, right, from the outside. Yeah. For example, the Irish do this all the time. And I was walking my little dog down the street the other day. And this guy, I don't really know him very well. I know him a little bit. And he just went, oh, that dog looks like it's dangerous. You need to put a muzzle on that dog. And he really looks like a teddy bear. He's not dangerous. And that's banter. It's just this kind of make a joke, have a bit of fun. Yeah. So this is the next one, Rebecca. The guy that you saw on the street, you could say guy or you could say loke. Loke. B-L-O-K-E. I'm sure quite a lot of people know that one already. So it's another word for a man. The next one I really like is guttered. G-U-T-T-E-D, guttered. And that means if you're very disappointed about something. So maybe if your team, your football team loses at the weekend, you are gutted afterwards. You are very, very disappointed. You feel bad. Literally a magnum, no? Because from the gut. Yeah, it comes from the gut. Something like that, yeah. Magnum, yeah. But I was going to say it's very typical with football, I think. I was just thinking that it's like, oh, I was gutted. They lost on penalties in the last minute and I was gutted, really disappointed. Yeah. If you are gutted, maybe because your team lost in a big way, so lost five nil or something like that, and you don't really know what to say about it, then we would say you're gobsmacked. Okay. So gobsmacked is another word for shocked or like speechless. It's a slang word for speechless. So I don't know what to say. I can't say anything. Speechless. And gob is, is it a Yorkshire thing only, or is it a British thing? I'm just wondering. Gob means mouth. Is it a slang word for your mouth? I don't think it's just Yorkshire. I think other people in England would say, shut your gob, like shut your mouth. Yeah, that's pretty harsh, but you can say that. And you're gobsmacked. Yeah, you're speechless because your gob has been smacked somehow. I don't know. Yeah, to smack your gob, it means literally to hit yourself in the mouth to stop you talking. Yes, right. I guess. Okay. But I was just wondering if gob is more of a Northern thing. I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. I don't know how many I'm at now, but let's have a look at knackered. Knackered. That's my last one. Very, very tired. If you've had a long day at work or something like this, you come home, you say, I'm knackered. And maybe a little link up there with, if you ever visit London, there's a slang there called Cockney rhyming slang. And it's called Cockney rhyming slang because they use words that are only connected to each other and it rhymes. So people from outside this London area, usually the official Cockney rhyming slang is in the East end of London. I believe you can hear the bells of Bow Street church. And I think that's the story behind it. Anyway, for example, they would say I'm cream crackered. So cream crackered rhymes with knackered. Wow. This is very complex stuff here. So this is university level English. Another one they use is my trouble and strife because it rhymes with wife. My wife's trouble. My trouble and strife is my wife. They have all these weird words that rhyme and then you have to figure out what they mean. That's a whole nother episode, Dave, I think. That's another episode. But a quick one. Apples and pears. Birgit, can you guess what that might mean? I've heard that before. Have you heard that one? Apple and pears is? I need to go up the apples and pears. Yeah, this guy. Yeah. Very good. Very good. Yeah. That's what the parents say to the kids when it's bedtime. Apples and pears. Apples and pears upstairs. Yeah. Wow. That means go to bed. Yeah, I love that. I do love that. I must say, yeah, that's really nice. And the knackered again, one reference to an earlier episode. It's a silent letter here. Absolutely. How do you spell that? K-N-A-C-K-E-R-E-D. Knackered. K-N-A-C-K-E-R-E-D. Yeah, that's an unusual word. I mean, it's not easy. Knackered. Yeah. Very tired. Very tired. So it's my turn now. What I found out in England when I was there, and it took me a while to understand because somebody used it a lot, quid. Ten quid. Ten quid. Pound. That's another word for pound. So people say that a lot also. Would you say that rather than pound? Always. Always. Yeah. When I say it and my dad always goes, I hope you don't teach your clients quid. He's always saying that. He's always embarrassed. It's not quid. Why? Yeah. I don't know because it's normal. And it's with a D just for the listeners. It's not quid. It sounds a bit like quid, but it's with a D. Quid. Ten quid. And often they also say for money, they say a fiver is a five quid note. And then you have a tenner or ten pound note or ten quid note is the one for 20. 20, I was just thinking. You don't say 20, but you would say 20 quid note. Yeah, exactly. And I've got an interesting question for you, Britz. Yeah. I know that never happened. And now you even left the EU, but just imagine you had taken on the euro. Would you still have called it a quid in England? Probably not. Probably. I don't know. Yeah, probably. I have no idea what we would have done, actually. That would have been a cultural disaster. We would have had to come up with another. Yeah, not being able to call it a quid. Not being able to get a quid. I honestly don't know. Never thought about that. But in the past, we used to have shillings and. Shillings, but we did have pounds, wasn't it pounds and shillings? Yeah, still pounds. That changed in 72, I think. Oh, I still remember that. I'm way too young. I remember that. I was born that year, Birgit. Remember that. Oh, that's you. I thought you were 71, Dave. 71, of course, yes. You're lying. This is another one for you, Birgit. You're rubbish, but we'll come. You're rubbish. You're rubbish. You're talking rubbish. Yeah, Dave's talking rubbish about his date of birth right now. Talking rubbish, yeah. You wouldn't say talking litter or. No, no. Talking rubbish. Talking rubbish. Yeah, you hear that all the time. I heard that. Trash. Americans would say talking trash. Talking trash. Like it's trash talk kind of thing, but mull and unsinn kind of, oh, that's rubbish. Don't say that. Nonsense. Yeah, people say nonsense. Talking rubbish. Coming back to quid, though, Birgit, if I may interrupt you, coming back to the money thing. A grand is a big one, which we say for a thousand. So a grand is a thousand pounds, a thousand quid. But you often use grand in the context of a thousand whatever. But usually with money. Yes, money. And you would go on like a hundred grand or something like that. How much does he earn? A hundred grand, you would say. Yes, please. Thank you. Not bad, yeah. The one I have taught people a lot because they don't know if they haven't spent time in England is the loo. If you need the lady's powder room. I don't think anybody says that if you get up at the table. Never heard anybody say that. I just go to the loo. L double O. Yeah, loo. They say I have to powder my nose, don't they? No. Oh, is that a bit old fashioned? You powder your nose. They're all, no, powder your nose. OK, so we had quid, we had loo, we had rubbish. And on the list is something like to nick. Can I nick this? Steal, steal. But also, is it not only borrow? Can I nick? Or is it more really like say. No, nick is like you're not giving it back. Yeah, you're clowning. Yeah, you nicked it. You nicked it. Yeah, I would say. But in the nick means in the police cell. Yes. Ah, OK. He's in the nick. He's in the nick. Oh, good. You're nicked as well means you're arrested. You can say like the police can say you're nicked, meaning you're arrested. We've arrested you. Maybe there's a connection with the stealing, I guess. I don't know. Yeah, probably. And there's a new one for maybe you and for me also, my gaff. I've never used that. And I haven't heard that. Come to my gaff. G-A-F-F. Home. Meine Bude. My gaff. My gaff. That's very, very common here in Ireland. Everybody says that. Come at my gaff. We're having drinks at my gaff. I would never say that, actually. But the Irish say that a lot. I think it's a London thing. Is it as well? Yeah, I would say so. Yeah, the Irish say that a lot. My other one favourite one from that list is dodgy. It's dodgy. I think that's a good word. And this Swedish dish like it's suspicious. It's not legal. It's a bit dodgy. He's a dodgy guy. He's a bit of a dodgy bloke. Have we had bloke? Yeah, he's a dodgy bloke. He's not above board. He's, you know, or just the food. If you say, oh, I don't feel very well. I think the sushi was a bit dodgy. It means it wasn't fresh. It wasn't good. You can say that you can. Dave's laughing. Yeah. Oh, no, you can. Yeah. Or the curry. The curry was dodgy. Yeah. Yeah. It was like the chicken wasn't cooked. So I don't know. It's like so many things can be dodgy. It's a good word. Good word. Yeah. Can I just add one last thing? I know it's many from my list then. But that's hilarious. I think pop once clocks. He popped his clocks. I haven't heard that. Is this rude? Or is it serious? I don't know if I'd use it about a person. I don't know. Would you? It's a bit. He popped his clocks. I didn't know. I've never heard that before. I wouldn't use it if the people affected were around about. That's the same. I mean, obviously not the person that died, but his relatives and family or whatever. You would say that in German. I had a level up. The same thing with you. I wouldn't say that about. I don't feel happy about that with the people. Yeah. So it's a good translation. Obviously, it's not. It's a bit uncomfortable. Yes, it is. And not if somebody's around that and left. No, no. Well, that's nice. No, no, not so. But you could say that for somebody else. If you're having a chat in the pub and you say, oh, yeah, he popped his clocks. It's like, but the people around would not be their relatives or anything. You wouldn't say that in front of relatives or family members. For sure. We really shouldn't be teaching this. Someone's going to say this in the wrong situation. I don't know if it's a good one. The last one from that list as well, guys, is the word because we're talking about money earlier. I know we've got a lot of vocab here, but skint is a very popular one. If you've got no money left. So skint means I have no money. So I'm skint. There's not enough money at the end of the month kind of thing. I'm skint. That's very common. Skint. Yeah, very good. The golden nugget. So the golden nugget today is kind of on the slang topic. It's not really slang, but it's just an easy way of saying something. I noticed from a lot of my clients that when they want to talk about a person doing a specific job, they always have exactly the right title for that person. So I don't know, the Heizungs, Wartungs, Mitarbeiter or something, you know, they have like a specific name for the electrical or the... And we do have these names. But just to make our lives easier, we just call him the guy. If it's a guy or the woman, if it's a woman, but often it is a guy. It's the heating guy. Oh, I have to answer the door because the heating guy is here. Or the window guy. I don't know. Your windows are broken. Or the window guy is coming at two. And you can use it for everything. And it just makes life a lot easier. For objects, another nice word, another nice slang word to use is thingy. The thingy, the dings, bumps, really useful as well. If you can't think of the right word or can you pass me the, I don't know, the kitchen thingy or the TV thingy. Again, it's just like this little filling word when you don't want to say exactly what it is or you can't remember the right word. Yeah. So the guy, if it's a guy, sometimes it might be a woman, but often it's a guy. And the thingy for the object. Okay. And next time we're meeting will be only the two of us, Rebecca and I, because Dave is going on holiday. He'll be away. He will not be here. And Rebecca and I are going to talk about forming questions correctly. So that's also a grammar topic. We had an episode earlier about answering questions with some tricks. And when you hold a presentation or something, how to answer to questions. Now you can learn something about forming questions correctly. It might sound easy, but it's not that easy for some people. They make mistakes. They get it wrong. So this is worth an episode. This is what we're going to highlight then. Hopefully you'll be listening again. Thanks for listening today and give us a rating and we'll be back soon. Bye bye for now. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for pressing play today. If you enjoy our podcast, please share with your friends, your family or your coworkers, or you can also support us by giving us a thumbs up or a star rating or a review on whatever podcast platform you are using to listen to us for questions and comments. You can also head over to our website, threeenglishexperts.com. Thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate your support. Have a great day and see you next time. Bye.