We’ve just become Australian citizens (hooray!) and in celebration we’ve written a post dedicated to the unique language they speak here - Australian.

You’re probably wondering what we’re talking about: Australians speak English, right? Well you my friend have clearly never spoken to a true Aussie.

At times, it feels like Aussies are speaking a completely different language. We arrived in Australia thinking that you may hear the occasional “strewth” (sadly, that’s very rare), but there’s a lot more to it than that. You can sometimes go whole sentences thinking “what on earth are they talking about?”

Rather than asking the usual questions about how many senators there are and who the Prime Minister is, the Aussie citizenship test should ask you to translate the local slang. Then you would truly know who has assimilated into Australian life!

So here’s the essentials. We’ve worked hard to fully translate as much Australian as possible and have created thesaurus for the great land Down Under. Feel free to comment below with any you think we may have missed!

Our guide to Aussie slang

The first thing to understand about Aussie slang is that shortening words is a national past-time. It’s like a linguistic Murphy’s Law: what can be shortened, will be shortened. Even words with two syllables will be shortened to one.

Most tend to be the first syllable with an o on the end, there’s a few with a y on the end, then there are others you don’t expect. It makes no sense, but after a while, you just go with it.

Here’s a few of our favourites.

Servo - Service Station…. yes, seriously
Ambo - Ambulance
Firey - Fire fighter
Sparky - Electrician
Chippy - Carpenter
Tradie - Anyone employed in construction
Arvo - Afternoon
Evo - Evening
Rego - Registration for your car
Smoke-o - Smoking break
Bottle-o - Bottle shop (liquor store, off-license)
Compo - Compensation, usually for working anti-social hours
Salvos - Salvation Army. Yes even charities get translated
Esky - Cool box
Togs - Swimwear
Larrakin - a joker
Vinnies - St Vincents (another charity)
Wagga - Wagga Wagga (a town)
Straya - Because Australia is too long a word

However, there’s one thing that has been agreed to never be shortened: Woy Woy. I have no idea why this town has such special protection, but it has pretty much been agreed by all Australians and isn’t even up for debate anymore.

Conversation

Here’s how small talk in Australia often goes.

It starts with G’day (hello, but said fast). Even Sydney Airport Arrivals has this plastered on a massive wall as soon as you get out of customs!

Some people choose to start with “Hows it going” - to which you aren’t meant to give an answer. It took me a long time to realise that anyone asking this was not at all interested in how I was doing. Sometimes you’ll see people passing and both say “hows it going” and neither reply. It’s an odd place.

You’ll get mate thrown at the start and end of sentences (sometimes an “ahhhh mate”, whether you know them or not. You’ll then likely get a few heaps. This is the aussie version of “a lot” and the weirdest use is in heaps good. If you ask “How was your day”, a pretty regular answer is “it was heaps good”.

Then comes the confusing “yeah, nah” or “nah, yeah”. Yeah nah means no. Nah yeah means yes. The order makes all the difference here. Both somehow mean they agree with you, but probably don’t agree with the rest of the world.

You’ll probably get a “mate, that’s far out” (cool), “I was pretty stoked” (happy) or “ohhhh good on ya mate”, which is used sometimes sincerely, but often sarcastically. Sometimes you have no idea whether its sarcastic or not, but just go with it.

Food & Booze

Australia may not have a distinct cuisine, but they do have a unique vocabulary for it. It starts with the shortening of any type of booze:

Grog - Alcohol
Cab Sav - Cabernet Sauvignon
Sav Blanc - Sauvignon Blanc
Sem Sav Blanc - Semillion Sauvignon Blanc
Goon - A bag of something claiming to be wine. Rumour has it that goon is made from animal bones….. Coldie - Beer
Stubbie - Bottle of beer
Tinny - A can of beer, but it can also be a boat 🤔
VB - Victoria Bitter - a beer that’s seen as the most bog standard, mass produced beer in Australia
Hotel - A pub. Always check before you book a room anywhere what type of hotel it is!
Pub - A pub
Schooner - The standard size for beer (smaller than a pint)

And of course coffee, which is fantastic and something they are justifiably proud of -

Long Black - Americano
Long Brown - Americano with milk

Then you get onto the food!

Tukker - Food
Snag - Sausage
Mystery bag - Also a sausage
Sausage sizzle - A barbecue where you specifically cook sausages. This tends to be outside Bunnings Warehouse (a hardware store) every weekend.
Democracy sausage - A sausage sizzle outside the polling booth on election day. They are everywhere.
Chook - Chicken
Avo - Avocado
Guac - Guacamole
Maccas - McDonalds. After saying this a couple of times, you realise it’s better than any other word for McDonalds.
Sambo - Sandwich (can also be known as a sanga)
Barbie - BBQ

Other bizarre words

Before I jump into the list, my favourite is doof doof. This is a word to discribe a party because it basically is the drumbeat you hear outside - doof, doof, doof, doof. 😂

Here are some other favourites:

Bogan - Chav
Pom - British person
Whinging Pom - British person (because we all whinge))
Budgie smugglers - Speedos. An aussie classic.
Hard Yakka - Hard work
Hooley Dooley - Shock, surprise
Chunder - Sick (as in puke)
Spewin - To be sick or angry. Probably not at the same time.
Chockers - Pretty busy in here
Rug up - To put on warm clothes
Daggy - Looking like a dork
Have a crack: Have a go
Ripper - Something’s good
Jocks - Underwear
Pokies - Slot machines - an obsession in New South Wales
Bludger - Lazy person
Pash - A kiss
Dunny - A toilet, normally in the Outback/outside
Thongs - Flip flops (yes really!)
Daks - Trousers
Tracky daks - Tracksuit trousers
Galah session - Ongoing conversation
Flaming galah - An idiot
Mad as a cut snake - Angry
Bloody oath - Correct
True blue - similar to fair dinkum
You beaut/you little beauty - a way to say something is great!

How everyone thinks Aussies talk

You quickly realise that whilst we all think Aussies are like Lou Carpenter from Neighbours or the guys on the Fosters adverts - few are anything like this.

Whilst Cat has known one person who actually uses all of the following phrases, we’ve not heard them as often as we’d hoped!

Here’s a few of the classics you’d expect to hear, but sadly don’t:

Hooroo - Hello or goodbye.
Strewth! - Shock. I really wanted to hear this, but its not as common as the Aussie soap operas suggest.
Rack off - Another neighboursism, but seriously we’ve only heard it once, and oh how happy it made us!
Fair dinkum - You rarely hear this one. It’s basically saying something is genuine or true.
Throw another shrimp on the barbie - The best way to annoy an Aussie. So obvious and stereotypical, but literally NO ONE says this!

The national philosophy

Time to get deep, but you quickly realise that Aussies are a truly confident bunch and will throw themselves into anything. If you’ve been to Thailand, you might have seen this through the amount of Aussies in the burns unit after they drank too much and took on that swinging rope of fire!

So if you want two phrases that sum up Australia perfectly, it’s:

Back yourself - No matter what you do, “back yourself”. In sport, in your work, in anything, Aussies will often say “you gotta back yourself”. This leads nicely to….

She’ll be right - This essentially means “it will all be ok”. It’s usually paired with doing something you don’t have a clue about, but it is also the most Australian thing I know.

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