I like to learn about words from around the world and use them in my speech. I have a particular love for British words. I just love words like spiv, nod, wasteman, barmy, slapper, bruv, lezza, shafted, nonce, junkie, bint, smackhead, nutter, slag, breve, chav, squiffy, slaphead, looney/loon, bender, and dosh.
Yeah, far too often.
I speak a lot of English
Nej, jag vägrar att använda utländska ord.
Med al ret!
Oh yeah, I’ve picked up some Brit slang and completely stole “no worries” from the Aussies
I’m super prone to using “bloody” when I want to curse but shouldn’t. It usually slips past other americans. Taking the piss is another fave.
We say ‘no wuccas’ now.
Well, ya have to, I stole the old one ;)
Jokes aside, that’s a pretty damn nice one too.
My grandma is German so I still drop words like this in otherwise normal English conversation. It’s just how me and my cousins called these things growing up.
Lappen- referring to a face washer/cloth
Barfuss- referring to barefoot
“Lappen” is also used as a fun but not overly offensive insult. Mainly for guys who act tough but really aren’t.
I spend more time speaking English than my native language.
More people speak English as a second language than people speak English as a first/native language, so you’re in the majority!
Do you still use words from your native language?
Of course. My work and my friends are quite international is all. With my family I speak my native tongue.
Yeah, I’m multilingual from a hispanic country, and due to job experience and the media I consume I’ve ended up with a real mess of both accent and lexicon. Nowadays, most of my english and italian interactions are limited to online gaming, and half the time people catch on to my accent, and guess I’m either quebecois, german, or french, despite not being fluent in any of those or ever spending more than a week in any of those countries.
In day to day life, I mix all three (spanish, english, and italian), using the first word that comes to mind. It feels really jarring trying to convey a complete idea in just spanish, and end up translating foreign words in my head. It’s faster for me now to communicate in english than it is in spanish.
Our family is pretty multicultural. We’re German, my mother is Norwegian. My aunt went to live in France and later married a British man (whom we suspect to be an ex MI6 agent). Really interesting to hear her speak German, her language basically stopped evolving when she moved. It’s subtle but still noticeable. And we have a close family friend from Lithuania. And my babushka lived in Russia for a while.
At her last birthday party before her death her mind (and hearing aid) were a little bit overwhelmed by all the people. And it was basically a coin toss what language she would speak with you. Actually kind of awesome. And if she defaulted to English it was good for including the MI6 agent because he didn’t speak German yet.
I love “what a load of rubbish” describing something unfair or dishonest.
Sometimes I’ll throw out an “I say, old chap” for fun.
You might enjoy this book. It’s like dictionary of random slang words from around the world, with different chapters based on categories.
Personally, I was a little disappointed because 99% of the definitions are just one sentence or sentence fragment. I was hoping to find out a little more about the origins of more of the words and maybe a little of the culture behind them.
