Aw yeah! Today we have a very special lesson for you.
I'm super excited, we have wanted to do this lesson for a long time and now we finally can,
because we have added a new fluency coach to the team: Ollie, from New South Wales,
Australia, who you will meet in just a moment. So we gather together to show you the differences
between American, British and Australian English. Now although we all speak the same language
it's no surprise that there are many different varieties.
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Right, now we're going to start with vocabulary differences, so we will look at some different
pictures and basically each of us will say what we call that in our part of the world.
So are you guys ready? Bring it on. Ready!
All right so this first one how would you call that Andrea?
This is of course a pepper. I almost agree with you, I would call
that a bell pepper because we have many different types of peppers in my part of the United States.
At least and in Australia it's a little bit different because for me pepper is
something really hot and spicy and this is not spicy. This is called a capsicum.
This is like the most bizarre word I have ever possibly imagined for this vegetable.
It's a really difficult word for something quite simple.
What would you call this Ollie? Yeah so this is an elevator.
You would call it an elevator as well? That's what we'd call it in the States. Andrea?
No, no, no. I'm sorry, this is called a lift. I suppose that makes sense, it kind of like
lifts you up but that sounds like a little bit- I feel like that might be what I would
call it for a kid or something like that. Well I don't know, I think elevators
may be a bit advanced for what it is a lift. Is just such a lovely easy word.
Yeah, that's true. It's probably important to note as well that we would say you're going
to take the lift or get in the lift, and this shouldn't be confused with giving someone a lift
or taking a lift from someone, which would describe a situation where you
take someone maybe in your car to a place that they need to go to.
I think in in the States and in Australia as well you probably use the same term,
right? To give someone a lift. Absolutely. -Yep.
Yeah, so in Australia we call this a petrol station but sometimes we can even shorten it
and say a peti station. So someone might say to you "uh I need to get some petrol,
let's go to the peti station." I love that, it's very similar.
We don't shorten this word like you do Ollie in Australia but in the UK we also
call this a petrol station because it's where you go to put petrol in your car.
What the heck is petrol? We put gasoline in a car. We would of course call this a
gas station because it's where you get gasoline. See when we think of gas we think of air,
when you think of the elements so if you're saying you're going to a gas station
it makes you think maybe you're going to pump your tires up because they need air or something,
or you need gas you know like when you have an operation or something you need gas and air-
Yeah we think like you actually Andrea, exactly the same, gas is air,
not what you put in your car. It's not gas, it's gasoline. Okay.
What would you call this Andrea? These are of course sweets.
For us if you say sweets- we could actually say that as well but it might also refer
to like anything sweet. So if you have a sweet tooth you might want like a cupcake,
you might want a pastry or something like that and those could all be sweets.
For us this certain type of sweet we would call candy.
Okay, and down in the land down under in Australia we call these lollies.
Like a lollipop? Yeah, I mean- well we actually caught a lollipop
is a lollipop. And these are lollies, with -ies. But are they on sticks and things?
No, they're not on sticks. I guess like lolly is even more general than sweets.
What would you call the place where you buy this? Would it be a lolli shop?
Oh, I don't even know if we have these types of stores!
I don't think a- good question. Yeah we have candy stores here.
Oh and we'd call it the sweet shop. The sweet shop, the lolly shop.
In the States if you say that it's like that shop is sweet,
like it's an awesome- a really great shop.
I love how we have all different words for this one. We've got three words there for one thing.
So moving on to the next one this of course would be called a drugstore or maybe even a pharmacy.
Yeah so I we could in Australia we could call this a pharmacy and you can also call it a chemist.
I'm with you there Ollie, in the UK we call this a chemist. But you could also call it a pharmacy.
Chemist... it sounds like way too archaic, it sounds really old or something like
you're actually going there and the guy's going to get like his potions and kind
of like mix it up for you. Yeah, that's what happens!
So in the UK if you told someone you were going to the drugstore they think that's where you're
going to buy drugs, like narcotics, because we don't call this drugs we call it medicine.
All right so moving on to the next picture. We talked about candy or sweets or lollies,
what do you guys call this? So I would call this fizzy drink.
Fizzy drink... it sounds like a great thing again. You call it the same Andrea?
Yeah so this one actually has lots of different names, so it's quite an interesting one.
We'd probably call it a soft drink but you'll also hear people call it
a fizzy drink or fizzy pop or even just pop. I think if you go to the North of England,
especially people would call it pop. In Australia you can ask the the waiter
what fizzy they have and they'll fit and they'll say "Oh we have Coca-Cola-" Actually
we call it Coke. Uh, Fanta, Pepsi, Sprite. In parts of the US I've heard that they'll-
for like all soft drinks they'll say Coke. So it doesn't matter what type that they want, they can
you say like as a general- they call them Coke. Where I'm from the US we'd probably say soda,
but it's the same as like in the UK that depending where you go you could hear people say pop or soda
or both of them together: "soda pop" and soft drinks also would be like in general to refer to
them, but I would never actually say that to say like "I want a soft drink" or something like that.
So what would you say is the most universal that you could use everywhere?
I think soft drink, right? I suppose people would know what you want but
it just sounds unnatural in the States for sure. So you better say soda or pop.
Interesting! So be careful because if you go to the UK and you order a soda you're going to get
basically like a fizzy water, a sort of water- Yeah that makes sense.
Uh, we would call that the trunk of the car.
So this is not what we call it in the UK. This is the boot of the car.
The boot? But that sounds like it should be underneath it.
Your boots, you wearing your feet. That sounds like it would be like
another name for the tires or something. Well it's because it's in the back, I suppose,
it's in the back of the car, so it's the boot. It's like the the end of it, maybe- I don't know.
Where do you wear your boots Andrea? Help me Ollie, what do you call it?
Well we also call it the boot of the car.
I had never heard trunk before until I met my first American, so this is
it's definitely the boot of the car. Ethan, you're outvoted on that one.
Voted off of the island.
So I suppose trunk because that's like another name for suitcases.
Oh, I see... So like that's what you put your suitcases in
and there's a lot of space for you to put things in, so that's why you call it trunk.
Exactly, so if you call this the trunk what do you call the front of the car?
The front is the hood. Hmm,
interesting. I would say bonnet. Same here, we call it the bonnet.
The bonnet, that sounds really old as well. You calling us old Ethan? Or passion right?
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All right I believe I'm looking at liquor bottles. So we talked about soft drinks
and then think in all cases of English we could also call these like hard drinks, but
what would you call a store where you buy these? I think I've heard it in Australia, so I want to
I want to hear what Ollie has to say. In Australia we call this a "bottle-o."
I think that's like the best possible name that you could have for it.
So it's so strange because it sounds like also it's a really good name,
because it sounds like whoever invented that name for it was maybe a little bit drunk.
I haven't heard that before, that's a completely new one for me.
So wow this is a tricky one. Actually because in the UK you can buy this in many different places,
so there are some shops that just sell alcohol and these are called off licenses.
So you would say "I'm going to the off license to buy something,"
but you can buy this in other shops as well. You can
buy at the supermarket. Lots of people will probably buy at the supermarket nowadays,
but you do still have some off licenses. We can't buy alcohol in the supermarket at all,
it's illegal, so we have to go to the bottler if we want to buy some hard, hard liquor.
Okay, now both of your guys I find them really bizarre. I think ours is a lot better name for it
and it's- we're in the same boat with Australia depending on the state that you're in,
you can't buy it at the supermarkets. You have to go to a liquor store, which a liquor store
is a store that sells liquor. But what is liquor, Ethan?
Liquor is hard alcohol, right? We have also a really good- there's like a- I
guess it's a poem that fits really well with this that says "Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker."
I think bottle-o is like the shorter version of "bottle shop"
because you go there and buy bottles or cans -if you want cans-
Okay, we only have two of these left. I believe this one is referring to the actual room that
you're supposed to go to, so I would call it the bathroom, like, "I have to go to the
bathroom" or "Where is the bathroom?" Well are you going to have a bath?
Yeah, this picture even only has like a toilet in it but we'd still call it the bathroom.
Yeah, well, I'm going to the toilet.
To the toilet me too. We would say "I'm going to the toilet" or you could even say
"I'm going to pop to the loo." Yeah, I'm going to the loo.
Yeah that's a nice little. Did you say that in Australia?
Yeah I'm going to the loo, I mean that's me always just sounded like super British,
I wouldn't imagine that you'd say it also. Yeah and if we're talking about the actual object
we can call this "the dunny" We definitely wouldn't say that,
we'd say maybe like "the can," like you say "I'm going to the can," but
it's a little bit crass, it's like not so polite. Yeah and in the UK our version would be "the bog."
So if you go to the States and you say toilet it's like quite literal, so I think it's considered
maybe not so polite and I think we say like bathroom or washroom or powder room. We have like
all these euphemisms because I guess people don't really want to imagine what you're doing in there,
or something like that. So we say the bathroom
and you could be doing so many things: taking a shower, having a bar, washing your hands...
Doing a little personal dance party, you never know!
Okay and then finally we talked about some different sweet things. These of course would
be cookies. -
Biscuits. - Biscuits.
Biscuits? It's a cookie. If it is a type of biscuit, you know with chocolate chips
and things like that, but this is an assortment and so we call these biscuits.
Biscuits for us would not be sweet, it'd be like a- it's kind of like a pastry that you
might have at breakfast. It's like a kind of a buttery bread roll sort-of-thing,
maybe you can show like a picture of what that looks like, but yeah if you go to the Sand
you ask for biscuits you're going to be sorely disappointed if you were wanting something sweet.
Wow! Interesting! We love a good biscuit with a cup of tea.
Now if a lot of this seem new to you do not let it stress you out. For us natives when
we meet someone from a different country or even just a different region from our own,
most of the time even though they might use some different words or pronounce something differently
our ears become quickly attuned and we can understand most new words by the context,
or even if that fails by simply being curious and asking that other person.
So if you work on your base listening, you'll be able to do this too. And this is something else
that we help you to do constantly here on this channel, so if you haven't yet
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And now it's time to go beyond the classroom and live your English. Aww yeah!!