how to speak australian

english is spoken in australia but sometimes it still sounds like a foreign language to newbies.

what you hear/see                   what it means

how’re ya going?                             how’re you doing?
stop mucking about.                      stop horsing around.

there’s an abbreviation for EVERYTHING:

the –ie/-y series
bikkie                                               biscuit
brekkie                                             breakfast
esky                                                   icebox/ cooler
mozzie                                              mosquito
prezzie                                              present
sunnies                                             sunglasses
Woolies                                            Woolworth’s supermarket
Brizzie                                              Brisbane

the –o series
freo                                                    Fremantle
paddo                                                Paddington
rotto                                                  Rottenest Island
journo                                               journalist
vejjo                                                  vegetarian

be careful what you order:

capsicum                                          bell pepper
tomato sauce                                   ketchup
lemonade                                         fizzy lemon soda like sprite or 7 up
dim sim                                            dim sum
flat white                                          caffe latte type bev
continental* parsley                      italian parsley
continental* cucumber                 english cucumber

*it seems more politically-correct than singling out one country for the provenance (like calling a “japanese pear” an “asian pear” so koreans don’t get pissed off) however what’s up with “Lebanese cucumbers”?

random sounds in casablanca

every morning we hear a moroccan man yell out something as he rolls a dolly down the street. it sounds something like “re~er~” with a lot of guttural inflection, somewhere in between a frog’s ribbit and a duck’s quack. he’s not selling anything. at first i thought he was collecting garbage but nobody brings him any. this happens several times throughout the day and in other parts of the city. i just can’t figure it out.

another mystery in casablanca unsolved.

ez dut ulertzen – bilbao

the next stop in spain was bilbao in the basque country. as soon as we stepped off the plane, this part of spain felt different. all the signs at the airport were in euskara, the language of the basque people. it bears no resemblance to spanish. it has a lot of k’s, x’s and z’s all strung together. here are some basic euskadi phrases:

Kaixo! = Hello

Garagardoa nahi nuke = Can I have a beer?

Eskerrik asko! = Thank you!

Ez dut nahi = I don’t want it

Kaka zaharra! = Crap!

the tapas are called “pintxos” here and the owner of our apartment was named itxaso.

i have more to tell you about bilbao so stay tuned.

so far, sofia

my first impression of sofia: my god, i can’t read anything here. all the street signs are in cyrillic. whereas varna caters strictly to tourists, sofia is a real city that can’t be bothered. luckily, i came across vagabond, a great english-language magazine that gives you the skinny on expat life in bulgaria. unlike some…ahem…magazines in seoul that just want to glorify korea, vagabond pulls no punches. here are some highlights from the mag:

“no” means “yes” in bulgaria

the low-down on shop assistants