Colloquial American English II

As I said in my previous post, here is the new one about colloquial English; the English people speak in the street. The expression "oh my God" is very used to express surprise but some people prefer to say "oh my Gosh" just to avoid the word God just for religious reasons. Also, one can easily hear the expression "onh my goodness" also to avoid the word God.


Another term we could hear in our daily life if we lived in any city of America is "I don't give a damn". This term is a little bit rude but it is used a lot and it just means something like "I don't care for whatever". For example, one can say "I don't give a damn what you are saying" to express that you don't really want to hear what someone is saying.


Another saying in American English is "go to your happy place". This expression is used when someone is a little bit blue (which means sad) and we want them to be happy. It means something like "go to the place you always have fun and chill out". Also, chill out(which means relax or calm down) can be said in a lot of way. Some of them are be cool, cool it or just cool.


In English there are not a lot of ways just to express fear but  screams or bad language. I have been looking for expressions and sayings and the most common I found is "to freak out". For example, you can say "Sarah freaked out when she saw the skeleton.

Also, in the academic life, specially in high schools, if any student is a good one, he or she is usually called nerd or nerdy. It is also a stereotype because even if someone is not a good student and wears big black glasses and is well mannered, he or she would also be consider a nerd.

I hope you liked this post. If you have any question just let me know. 

By: Francisco Manuel Alfonso Sánchez

Colloquial English

         During our entire academic life, we all are taught standard English. This is okay if we want people to understand us but we don't really get, in schools, the English people use in their daily life. This post is dedicated to the English teachers don't teach us and, probably, the most spoken in an English society. 

         How can we get these sayings and expressions? From my humble opinion, the best way to get them is to enjoy a society where the language stablished is English. This blog is about American English and so will be the examples I will post here. I got them from an linguistic ex-change I met at the university so I think they will work.

        A good example of this colloquial American English is "duh". Americans use it all the time and it is like saying "yeah" or "of course". for example, imagine someone asks you "-Wanna hang out tonite?". If it is obvious that you do want to, you would just say "-Duh!".

      They also say "the bun is in the oven". A bun is a type of bread and it is a methaphoric way to say that a woman is pregnant. There are another ways to say it like "She is knocked up" and "she is expecting".

     Also, there are expressions that are used specially by young people. for example, they say " What's up?" and "What's new?" just to say "how are you?". It is very popular and it is used a lot in the street with friends, relatives or, as I said before, young people. This gruop of society, also say "he/she is wasted" or "he/she is trasked" to mean that someone is drunk.

   

     There are more sayings and colloqial terms I will post soon. I hope you liked it.

By: Francisco Manuel Alfonso Sámchez.