Before I came over to Sydney, I was warned that Australians can be very blunt, and that I shouldn’t think it’s rudeness. While I wouldn’t say people who live in Sydney are rude, the warning definitely has some truth to it. I’ve had Sydneysiders tell me to my face tell me that the U.S. has no class or that we’re all hicks. Every time this happens though, it’s always in jest, or at least pretend jest, so I don’t mind. It’s also contributed I think to a high rate of street harassment. Sydney is a lovely city, but the things people say to women on the street is much worse than any other city I’ve lived in. I’ve never felt unsafe, but the culture in Sydney of saying what you mean and not holding back means that more people will approach me and give their opinion than normal. It makes walking around at night just a little bit harder. However, I don’t want to scare anyone off from Sydney, I really have never felt threatened here.
Besides the occasional instance of not knowing a bit of slang (for example, arvo = afternoon, which I would never have gotten without an Australian telling me), I haven’t had any instances where I was misunderstood or I misunderstood someone else. English is fairly universal. However, I will leave you with a list of some of my favorite Australian slang that I’ve picked up.
Arvo = afternoon
Brekkie = breakfast
Defo = definitely
Banger = a great song
She’ll be right = you’ll be okay
Doco = documentary
Ambo = ambulance
Beeries = beers
Milk bar = takeout food place
And my personal favorite…budgie smuggler, which, directly means someone or something who would be smuggling a budgerigar (a small Australian bird), but actually refers to a Speedo.
Australians don’t like using the full word of something, so most have shortened versions, which means that you can meet a mate for brekkie in the morning before heading to your parents’ in the arvo to have a couple beeries and go to the milk bar.
