What's going on guys! I'm Ethan your Reallife English fluency coach, and today's lesson we're going to dive into
a very common problem amongst English learners and that is that usually learners of any language tend to
use the same words all the time.
Now if you want to sound more confident and natural when you speak English, then it can be really useful
to observe what are the different ways in which natives kind of say the same thing.
and this also makes it a lot more fun.
now one of the most rewarding parts of learning another language is that you can make friends from all over
the world and you're really using the language it's kind of a tool for connection
so we thought that the perfect place to start speaking about vocabulary would be to dive into different ways
to talk about friendship
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now before we get started let me explain
to you how this lesson will be structured so it's actually broken into
three different parts so first off we're gonna talk about useful synonyms which
are much better than using the word friend in English
Next we're gonna talk about some creative alternatives to this word.
And finally we'll dive into phrasal verbs
and expressions related to friendship that you can use all the time.
And of course true to our style you won't just be memorizing a long list of
vocabulary we're going to make it really fun and easy to remember using your
favorite TV series movies and so much more
alright ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, let's dive into this super fun
lesson all about friendship.
Now I'm sure you already know the word friend is probably the most
common one that you will find in the USA but I bet you also know another word
that is commonly used in other english-speaking countries.
now of course the word mate is very commonly used in Australia, the UK
among other countries but in the USA you'll also find it attached to other words
such as "roommate," "teammate" or "classmate."
Now, some of the most common alternatives that you can use to call a friend
so the first one is "bro" and there are also some common alternatives to this one
that you can encounter such as "brotha" "bruda" "bra"
if you're in South Africa you could here bru.
now of course this is a very masculine sounding word and it's mostly used to
refer to male friends but you can also use it with close female friends
although you can also encounter alternatives such as "sister" or "sis"
Now, the next one that you can very commonly hear is "buddy" and this is often
shortened just to "bud."
I would say that buddy is probably more colloquial in the way that you could actually hear
it just used to refer to any person
so you could say "How are you doing, buddy?"
you see someone even if they're just kind of an acquaintance they're not
really a close friend but the next one "dude" you would probably use more
commonly with people who actually are your friends or who are part of your
group of friends to say "Hey dude can you do me a favor"
or "Hey dude what are you doing this weekend?"
now another very similar one to "dude" is man
and this can actually be used to refer to both guys and girls.
"How's it going man," "What's up, man?"
The next one is fella now I probably wouldn't use thisone so often it's actually derived from
the word fellow and this is probably thought of as kind of old-fashioned but
depending on the area of the United States that you go to you could actually
encounter people using this in the same way as man or dude or buddy
The last one is pal now this one is very similar to buddy and the way that it
might be used sometimes even with someone who's not necessarily a friend
and also it's kind of similar in the way to fella that you'll encounter it more
in certain parts the United States than others.
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all right so now let's look at some alternatives that you could also encounter native saying
or that you could use if you want to sound a little bit more creative with your English
so first off you probably know that if you're in a relationship with someone and you're
not married yet that you would call this person your boyfriend or girlfriend respectively
however you'll also encounter women using the word
girlfriend to refer to friends of theirs that are female so this doesn't mean
that they're in a relationship romantically with this person but it
just means that they consider that person to be a close female friend
however for men the word boyfriend does not work in the same way it only
connotes a romantic relationship
something else that's really fun about English is that is such a blend it's a fusion of a lot
of different words coming from other languages and with the word friend
there's actually some alternatives that are derived from other languages coming
from the influence of immigrants as well as just popular culture so one of the
most common ones comes from Spanish amigo and of course you're not going to
say this with a Spanish accent at all you would just say it like an American would: amigo
and a couple others that are drive from other languages are compadre and paisan
actually there's a really great clip from friends where they use this
and another interesting influence on American English of course is the culture of rap
and from this there are many words that first started really within groups of rap culture or even
within gangs but have found their way into mainstream culture and that you'll
really find virtually anyone using
but of course keep in mind these words are more informal so you probably wouldn't use
them in such a professional setting
so the most common one that you will
encounter people saying is the word homie and then there's also some other
words derived from this such as homeboy or homegirl respectively or homeslice
so you could say for example "Hey homeslice can you hand me another piece of pizza"?
another fairly common one is dawg and you'll hear this like what's up dawg
but if you're actually using this for texting it is spelled different than the
animal it's spelled DAWG and I think there's even a little bit more emphasis
on that ah sound in the middle so it's dAWg.
The next one I think maybe is not so common nowadays as it
used to be I remember a lot of people used to say this in the 90s and that is
my nizzle and there's kind of a colloquialism that goes along with this one
and that's for shizzle my nizzle and this actually kind of shows us some
reduction some connected speech this basically you would be the same as
saying for sure dude or for sure friend so basically the for gets shortened to
fo fo shizzle meaning for sure and then my gets reduced to mah my nizzle
for shizzle my nizzle
one that I don't use so much but that is very popular with younger people nowadays is fam
now this is a shortened from family and it's used to refer to someone that you are very close to
almost as if you were actually family
and finally these ones coming from
rap culture the last one is son now kind of similar to saying like bro or fam
we're kind of using this to refer to somewhere that we're close to as in family
but you can also just hear this colloquially used on the street
finally of course there's terms that are used in a friendly way to refer to
someone such as their function so an example of this would be the word roomie
now this is derived from roommates and it's kind of shortened as a lot of words
are with the e sound and basically roomie would be a kind of friendly way
to refer to someone that is your roommate now keep in mind that in
American English the word roommate does not actually mean that you share a room with someone
this is just someone that you live with whether it is in the same room
but it could also be in the same apartment or the same house
now do you know what they would say in the UK for a similar term to this
they would actually say flatmate because the word flat is used instead of the word apartment
and then we have some terms for friends that are only used in the plural that is to refer
to your group of friends now one that is related to one that we just saw is my
boys or my girls used to refer to your group of guy friends or your group of girlfriends
now, one that you could commonly encounter in the UK is lads
so you can hear people from England say the lads when they're referring to their
group of male friends
and then instead of saying the lads in the u.s. you would probably hear more
common the guys for example "I'm going out for pizza and beers with the guys"
the next one is a sidekick this is a person who spends time with or helps
another person especially when that other person is more important than they are
in movies it's common to see a main character and his or her sidekick like
spongebob and his sidekick Patrick or Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Watson
probably one of the most classic examples of this is Robin being sidekick to Batman
with that in mind when you think of these two guys who would you say is the sidekick
actually Chandler and Joey are both important characters in friends
an appropriate alternative to define their friendship might be
partners in crime, this is a humorous way to refer to two
friends and again to help you to understand the concept of this term
Chandler and Joey are the perfect example
Steven Tyler here says this phrase to refer to a girl he's in love with.
so you already know the use of bro or brother to refer to a friend
a humorous extension to that is the phrase brother from another mother or alternatively
sister from another mister
the idea is that you two are so close that it feels
almost like a literal brother or sister
the next is wingman check out how it's used here
a wingman is a friend who supports you especially a man who supports another man when trying to meet
or talk to possible partners here's a couple clips where Sheldon and Marshall
show us how not to be a good wingman
by the way would you like us to make a lesson teaching
you some terms for flirting and dating like wingman well then all you have to do
is give this video a like to let us know
Aww yeah, so now you are a master of different ways to say friends so you
don't just have to sound boring when you're actually referring to someone
that you have a close relationship with
you can be more creative and confident
when you speak but that's not all
let's actually look at some phrasal verbs and
expressions related to friendship so we'll start off in this section with a
quiz imagine that after meeting a person for the first time you really like that
person and he or she likes you back
so which of these options would express that?
keep in mind that most of these expressions that will teach you can be
used to describe a platonic relationship with a friend or a romantic interest
let's see an example of how clicked is used in a non romantic sense with Cameron and his students
and another example click being used in a romantic sense
a very similar expression is to hit it off with someone we showed you the end of this clip at
the beginning of this lesson but let's watch this sequence from the beginning
also note the use of wingman here
next is bond
this means to form a close relationship with someone
example we were strangers at first but we bonded with each other quickly
if two people have chemistry they have an
attraction to each other or they feel well working or being together
Next is get along. If two people or more people get along they like each other and are friendly to each other
of course you can get along with
someone but not be their friend necessarily but if you say you care about that person
you do so because they've been your friend for a long time
or maybe because it's a member of your family
keep in touch is what we might say to a
friend or colleague when they're not in the same place you are
this means to continue to talk or write. Example: "I'll be out of town until the
end of the year but we'll keep in touch through whatsapp" you could also use this
in a business setting for example if you want someone to keep contact with you in
the future keep in touch about any ways
think we could collaborate down the road
the opposite of this is to lose touch with someone
also when we think of a childhood friend we might say that we have drifted apart from that friend
this connotes that your friendship has withered over time for example if you took different paths
like going to different universities and now you're no longer close friends
in the first episode of friends Rachel and Monica reunite after
having drifted apart after high school
the next and last two expressions have opposite connotations
have someone's back
and fair-weather friend
if you have someone's back you're prepared and willing to support or defend someone
an even stronger expression is that you
would take a bullet for someone in other words you care so much about them that
you would die to save their life example "we've been friends forever I'd take a
bullet for him" a good friend is one that has your back however maybe you know
someone who is a fair-weather friend
this is someone who only wants to be
your friend in positive times for example this could be someone you know
who is always open to going to a party with you but who is suddenly unavailable
when you need help to move apartments
example "I thought Tim would always stick
by me but when I got into trouble he turned out to be a fair-weather friend."
hey dudes I hope that you feel a lot more confident now going out and
actually using some of these expressions and vocabulary to feel a bit more
natural in your English speaking and also remember that if you really want to
take your English fluency and confidence in the next level that you don't want to
miss out on this 49 percent discount that we have right now on our fluent
with friends course so if you are ready to revolutionize
your English over the next year it's really simple to take
advantage of that just look for the link down in the description below and
remember to use that code 2Million to get 49 percent off at checkout but
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