Everyday British Slang Phrases for English Learners

(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, we are the 3 English Experts. I'm Rebecca. I'm Dave. I'm Birgit. 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. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to listening to our podcast again, 3 English Experts. And today we are talking about slang. But we had an episode earlier this year about slang words, fantastic and very useful slang words to put into your active vocabulary. Today we're talking about common slang phrases. So what that means, you'll find out very soon. We have our top 10 list and maybe a couple of more. And who's going to start today? Dave, Rebecca, I don't know really. Hands up, Rebecca. I've got my hands up. I've got my hands up. I'm going to start with, I think we have talked about this before, but I'm going to start with the word fancy because I think fancy is a great word and it's so common and it's so easy to use. I think it is a bit more British than American, I would say. Oh, by the way, we've been checking our stats and we noticed that we have a lot of listeners in the States. So if you are listening from the States, hello to you all. Hello to our people in Russia as well, by the way. And hello to our people in Vietnam. We've got a lot of listeners in Vietnam. So that's very interesting. Sorry, I'm getting sidetracked. Fancy, you can use in so many situations. So do you fancy? It's good for questions. Do you fancy going to the cinema tonight? Just are you in the mood? Do you feel like, yeah? Or do you fancy eating? So it's always followed with the gerund. Do you fancy eating pizza? Big, it's getting excited because we had a grammar point there. Who's waving at me? Yeah, I remember. Do you fancy eating pizza? Yeah, I fancy that. You can say, yeah, I fancy that. Yeah, I fancy eating pizza tonight. So it's just an easy way to say, are you in the mood? Do you feel like doing something? It does have other meanings, fancy dress, fancy food, but in general, if you use it in a question, it just means do you feel like. So I think it's a nice one. It's easy to integrate. Just remember to use it with the gerund form. Fancy doing something. Do you fancy that, Dave? Do you think that's a good idea? Absolutely. But the other side to it could be bothered. Oh, yes. So bothered. A common phrase I think in English is you'll probably hear, I can't be bothered. So which means you don't have any motivation to do anything. For example, a boss says to you, let's do this or let's do that. And you say, no, I can't be bothered. Or I can't be bothered to do my taxes today. I can't be bothered to do a chore that you have at home. mow the lawn, do the dishes. I can't be bothered. It's just a really cool phrase. But Rebecca, I'm just saying you said, Oh, I could say to the boss, I can't be bothered. I'm not sure if I would say it to the boss. Could you please do this spreadsheet? I can't be bothered. Not a good tip. Well, I mean, I don't feel I mean, the other word is I don't feel like it. Yes. As a synonym for I can't be bothered, but can't be bothered is a bit more slangy. Right. Yes. And I'm bothered. Maybe with the fancy, you could say in the sense of, I'm not bothered. It doesn't matter to me. I don't mind. So that's another way where you can use the word bothered. So in this idea of it doesn't really matter to me which way we do it. Do you fancy pizza? I'm not bothered. But it could be a little bit negative. I'm not, I really don't care. It's kind of like, Oh, I'm not bothered. Yeah. Doesn't matter. Yeah. Okay. I reckon that's interesting. I reckon that's the next one. I reckon, I think, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. I reckon, I don't have, I don't know, does it have a different meaning also? Reckoning, reckoning, thinking. Yeah. Thinking about something. Reckoning. Would you use that in the same sense? Yes. And you hear that very often when you're in the country, at least in England and America, I don't know, is it, is there a difference? Do you think, I reckon, do you reckon? I think Americans use a guess quite a lot. I guess so. I think we definitely use reckon. So you could say, is she coming to the meeting? Yeah, I reckon. Meaning like, I assume so, you know, I reckon so, I reckon. Yeah, I reckon, I reckon she is coming. Whereas maybe the Americans maybe would say, Oh yeah, I guess so. I guess she's coming. But we would say that as well. It's interchangeable, I would say. Yeah. It really depends on people because now thinking about it, reckoning about it, I don't think I've heard that overly often from you too. So I'm not sure whether you use it a lot. I reckon. Do you reckon? Do you reckon? Do I reckon? Do I reckon? Yeah. But it's a nice way of saying and it's very common. I reckon. Yeah, that's a nice one to take away. Next one. So we've got there you go, and here you go. So there you go. And here you go. There you go. It's kind of like, so look, that's how it is. There you go. You can finish a sentence with that. So it's sort of like a conclusion. There you go. See still, it's kind of like it's happened. Here you go is more when you pass something to somebody. So somebody says, can you pass me the salt? And you say, yeah, here you go. It's just like, literally you handing it over to another person, Bitterschön in German. You know, you're handing it over. Oh, can you do that? Yeah, here you go. You're giving it somebody, something. But there you go is kind of a conclusion. Is it? But does it have a connotation? Like, I think these two in Germany has a kind of, sort of, so I knew it better. Like a critical. There you go. It can be as well. Yeah, it can be. So there you go. I knew it better. I told you so. Depending on the pronunciation, how you say it. Yeah. Not always exactly. Not always, but it could be a little bit critical. There you go. There you go. I told you before. I told you so. I told you before. But then I could say, Rebecca, come off it. You're talking rubbish. Come off it. Come off it. So if you think somebody's talking rubbish, guys and gals, in a meeting, maybe not a good idea, but in friends or group of friends, something like that, tell them, come off it. That means you don't really believe what they're saying. They're talking rubbish. So you can say, come off it. The question is, what's the it, isn't it? Come off it. Come off what? You know, what is the it? I never thought about that, actually. Yeah. Don't be silly. I like that. But this, ach, komm, sounds a bit very soft here. Ach, komm, na ja. Come off it. Come off it is a little stronger. Come off it. I think it's quite strong. I would say, come off it. I love the way Dave's telling his boss, come off it, and I can't be bothered. It's brilliant. Saying it very directly, too. The boss knows what he's... Ah, I wonder why you've chosen it. But fair enough. Fair enough, you've chosen that. Fair enough. Yes, fair enough. What would be the accepting point? Yeah, fair enough. I see. Schon gut. Einverstanden. Yeah, fair enough. Why not? It's kind of like, why not? Fair enough. Fair enough. That's your point. You think that way, and that's fair enough. Okay. I'm okay with that, I think. Yeah. It's also kind of, if someone says, oh, I've done so many hours of work this week. I don't want to do the meeting on Friday. You say, okay, fair enough. Meaning, I understand why. I understand your point. That's fair. Aha. So you're becoming more rebellious now, Rebecca, I see. I can't be bothered to do another meeting this week, Dave. So I'm not doing it. It's catching here, guys. It's catching. Rebecca is now becoming more rebellious. What's next? Okay. Give us a sec. Yeah. I think this leads on to the last one. Give us a sec. Let me think about it. I'm still trying to think what I want to say next. So give me a sec. Or if you want to talk to somebody, or you can also, ah, that's where you can say, for example, have you got a sec? Mm-hmm. So if you want to talk to somebody, you can say to somebody, have you got a sec? Have you got a minute? Or something like that. But give me a sec means I haven't got a time at the moment. So let me think. Thinking time. I think that's one a lot of non-natives would hear and maybe not immediately understand. What are they saying? Sec? What's a sec? A sec is a second, exactly. But I don't think that's immediately obvious. So yeah, give me a sec. I just need a second. Or, yeah, have you got a sec? I mean, I don't think I would ever hear a non-native say that. So if you really want to upgrade, if you're looking to upgrade to be really British sounding, do the Americans say that? I'm not quite sure. But have you got a sec is very British. And I reckon you have no explanation whatsoever why you say, have you got a sec? And not, you don't say, give me a minute. No, exactly. Come off it. We can't say that. Come off it. Have you got a min? Okay. No. Yeah, funny. Fair enough. I don't know. I don't know. But it's a sec. Yeah. Okay. So the last one, I think, which fits nicely is that'll do, that will do, which is always put together. That'll do, you know, we put the L apostrophe and double L. That'll do is like, that's enough. Okay. That's the conclusion. That's done. That's enough. But it could be in a negative way if you want to stop people arguing. Okay. That'll do. There's two people arguing and you want to say, okay, that's enough now. Let's stop this. Mother with the children. Exactly. Mom to the kids. That'll do. That's enough. But it can also be, oh yeah, that's nice. That's good. It's a famous line in the film Babe. If you know the film Babe with the pig and the farmer. No, don't know that film. And he says at the end, that'll do pig. That'll do. As in it's, it's one of my favourite films. I love Babe. And he said, basically that's enough. That's a good that you've done well. That'll do pig. That'll do. Everyone's confused now. But we haven't seen the film. You haven't seen the film. I might've seen it, but maybe not. To be fair. We missed that one. To be fair. It may be, is a very good film, but we haven't seen it. So we can't, we can't laugh with you at the moment, Rebecca. Okay. Well, there you go. We're being reasonable. There you go. You don't know. So there you go. I reckon I could watch it. I think you could. And it's a really nice film. So, yeah. Okay. So that's, that's maybe that our golden nugget. Watch the film Babe in English. Yeah, but you have another one. I know that. Oh, right. Okay. The golden nuggets. One of them is very useful if you hear people trying to be diplomatic, but in actual fact, they're probably not. So this is a common thing with English, particularly with the British using this word, a bit of, or this phrase, a bit of something. So a bit of a problem, a bit of an issue, or maybe you could say this person is a bit, bit of a difficult person. So it sounds less strong as it actually is when you understand the words, a bit of, but there's this underlying sort of meaning that it's actually the opposite. So they're actually a lot. So if it's, there's a little bit of a problem, it's actually a big problem, but we reduce it down. We soften it to make it sound not as bad. So if you hear people using this word, a bit of something, culturally, especially if it's a British, culturally, it means it's the opposite, but they're trying to, it's called an understatement. Basically, they're making it less important than it really is. So that's our golden nugget for today. Listen carefully when you hear the native speak. And particularly with this, a little bit or a bit of something is usually a case where they're making something sound smaller than it really is. And it's often the opposite. That was a bit of a good one, wasn't it? It was a bit of a good one. Yes. Thank you, Dave. So next week or next time, should I say next episode, we are going to talk about question tags. So we had an episode about how to form questions because sometimes people find this quite tricky. It's not an easy thing. And one of the ways you can form questions is by using question tags. So this little word on the end of a sentence. So you're British, aren't you, Dave, for example? Yes, I am. You're not French, are you, Birgit? No, I'm not. Yeah. So it's these little questions. They're quite useful. Can you be used in different scenarios? So we'll be explaining the different ways you can use them and how to form them, of course. And that's our topic for next time. 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