Sussing Aussie English -- it's a bugger

Hachiko

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When I found out I'd be spending a month accompanying two Australians around Japan, I thought, "Easy -- we speak the same language." Bloody wrong! "Aussie English" is completely different from the English used on my planet, the United States.
Australian English has an errant "r," which can be added or discarded at will. "R" can be added to select words ending in vowels, such that "America" becomes "Ameriker" and a "koala" becomes a "koaler." If you are a cartoonist, you're good at "drawring." Discarding the "r" is just as rampant, as seen in the favorite Australian slang term, "bugger!" (correctly pronounced "bugga!"), a term that transcends all parts of speech but is most often used to express surprise when something doesn't turn out as one thought it would.

Japan Times
 
I hate that, th become rf.

Bloody oath, they got it right on the spot! Thats exactly what a true blue aussies sounds like!

How people speak also depends on the area they come from. Rule of thumb is the further north you go the thicker the accent and more colorful the language turns.
 
too-right, mateys!
[/stereotype]

ahh.. ok hehe.. i guess we have a lot of slang that's different to america. in case no-one noticed, tho, english is a pretty broad language and americans are just as guilty of slang-ing it as we are!

no wonder foreigners struggle to learn english!


re: the article,
"Sunnies" are what you put on your head to protect your eyes from the, um, sunny? And how do you know if a "telly" is a television or a telephone? Ah, bugger it!
interesting question - "telly" is the television, e.g. "What's on the telly tonight?"
telephone doesn't become "telly", but simply "phone".


some of the things mentioned in the article are a bit more stereotypical than is what is common in Sydney, where I live, which is more of an international city than a "country town" like where many of those expressions would be commonly used.
 
I think that girl's been in japan so long she forgot how to deal with accents and everything, that or shes never been around the states enough to even know anything.

people in boston stretch out vowels, ask someone from there to say "park the car in harvard park after dark" and if they dont punch ya in the face for asking it will sound something like this "paahrk the caa in haahvard paahrk afta daahrk"
also in the south the "R" at the end of words will be randomly added or dropped. not to mention, you get words like "yanttoo" (you want to) and "y'all" (you all) which can be singular and plural as well. sodie for soda etc etc.

most of australian english is fairly easy to understand for any american. in the month i was there "shout," meaning "to pay for" was the only word that really threw me off. australians are abbreviators though. which can cause some confusion when seeing road signs, on the freeway, that say "F'tree Gly" (ferntree gully)
either way its all fun, and you get some new words to take home.
 
Like jeisan said, we have that here in the states, too. Especially in the New York region, you hear the "migrating 'r'" frequently. It's not where it should be, and it is where it shouldn't be.
 

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