I think we all understand its like going back in time of course. The nz accent and use of language naturally relfects this! Very primitive oaks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns-ZmTqCb3c
Another attention seeking childish post.
BTW, when the exercise is about comparing accents then the South African has to be the pits!
Every country has its slang, those silly little words and phrases that
make absolutely no sense to outsiders, and New Zealand is no exception. Here is
a list of ten of those silly words and phrases that Kiwis say, of which I had
to hastily make sense when we emigrated from England, and which you might find
useful if you’re planning a holiday in New Zealand:
1)
Sweet as
Kiwis have a disconcerting habit of not finishing similes. Though
‘sweet as’ is the most common, practically any adjective can be placed before
the ‘as’, such as ‘dark as’, as in, ‘It’s dark as in here’, which means ‘It’s
really dark in here’. When I first moved to New Zealand, it was hard to get
used to saying something like ‘I’m just going to the toilet’ and
hearing ‘Sweet as’ in response – I mean sweet as what, for
goodness’ sake? The act of going to the toilet is hardly sweet!(Probably the
best moment in a kiwis day?) The problem is that ‘sweet as’ can mean
many things, from a simple ‘okay’ to ‘really awesome’, as in ‘This beach is
sweet as’. ‘Sweet as’ is often used interchangeably with ‘awesome’ – ‘I got
some milk.’ / ‘Awesome, put it in the fridge.’ I should add that Kiwis
tend to use the word ‘awesome’ to describe things that are in actual fact quite
unremarkable. (like their rugby!!!)
2)
Choice
Another word Kiwis use interchangeably with ‘awesome’ is ‘choice’ – ‘I’m going
to the beach.’ / ‘Choice.’ – ‘New Zealand is a choice place to live.’ After
a certain amount of confusion as to why and how a word that means ‘decision’
can come to be used in the place of ‘awesome’, I realised that you can also
have ‘choice’ cuts of meat – ‘choice’ as in ‘the best’, or, perhaps, ‘the ones
that would be chosen first’ or ‘a good choice’. Maybe if you say ‘I’m going to
the beach’ and a Kiwi replies ‘Choice’, what they mean is ‘That’s a great
choice for you to have made’. Another word that Kiwis sometimes use in the
place of ‘choice’ is ‘chur’, but not when it’s an adjective – you
couldn’t say ‘New Zealand is a chur place to live’; that makes no sense, but
‘chur’ can be used appreciatively, as in ‘That’s awesome’. ‘Chur’ can also
be used as an informal ‘thank you’, which means it might derive from the word
‘cheers’.
3)
Not even
‘Not even’ means ‘no’, but not a simple ‘no’, more an indignant emphasis of how
untrue something is. ‘You like Justin Bieber.’ / ‘Not even.’ Maybe it comes
from ‘not even that’ – Kiwis tend to shorten everything. For
example, ‘afternoon’ becomes ‘arvo’, ‘cousin’ become ‘cuz’,
and ‘brother’ becomes ‘bro’. It should be noted that Kiwis, especially young
male Kiwis, call every male they come into contact with ‘bro’ regardless of
whether or not they are brothers or even, in fact, related. (Extraordinary
stuff !!!)
4)
Ow
The word – well it’s more of a noise than a word – ‘ow’
doesn’t really mean anything. It certainly doesn’t mean ‘I’m in pain’. It’s
just a sound that Kiwis – Maoris in particular – add to the end of random
sentences. ‘Where are you going, ow?’ ‘Chuck me a beer, ow.’ ‘Not even,
ow.’ It’s just for emphasis. When I first moved to New Zealand, everyone said
‘oy’ instead – ‘What’s up, oy?’ – but ‘ow’ seems to have replaced it.
5)
Yeah-nah
What a pointless contradiction! ‘Is it raining out there?’ / ‘Yeah-nah.’ ‘Do
you want a drink?’ / ‘Oh, yeah-nah, not really, eh.’ Kiwis aren’t very
decisive people. ‘Yeah-nah’ seems to mean ‘kind of’. You say it
when you agree with someone, but also don’t, or if you get what someone’s
saying, but don’t agree. ‘Yeah-nah’ means ‘no’, but perhaps in a way
that you don’t want to offend people. It also means ‘yes’.
6)
Good on ya, mate
The phrase ‘Good on ya, mate’ was popularised by a series of commercials for
the New Zealand beer Speight’s. It means ‘well
done’ or ‘I approve’. The word ‘mate’ is like ‘bro’ in that it is used mostly
by males to describe other males even if they’ve never met them before,
except ‘mate’ is more used by white guys. ‘Good on ya’ can be shortened
to ‘on ya’, as in ‘I won the race.’ / ‘On ya, Kevin.’
7)
Bring a plate
‘Bring a plate’ is an instruction that has tripped up many a new
immigrant to New Zealand, including my mum. If you get invited to a party and
the host tells you to ‘Bring a plate’, they don’t mean ‘We don’t have enough
plates for so many people, so bring one of your own’, they mean ‘Bring
a portion of food for everyone to share, such as a bowl of potato
salad, or a cake, or, if you’re lazy, a packet of corn chips and dip’. You
don’t want to see the look on the host’s face when you show up with an empty
plate expecting them to put food on it for you.
8)
Lollies
Being an English person, a Kiwi word that personally annoys me is ‘lollies’. In
England, ‘lolly’ is a short form of ‘lollipop’, but in New Zealand
‘lollies’ means ‘all sweets in general’. (If you’re American, ‘sweets’
is the English word for ‘candy’.)
9)
Dairy
If you’re not from New Zealand, if you hear the word ‘dairy’ you probably think
of ‘milk products’ or ‘a farm with cows on it’. In New Zealand, as well as
being those things, ‘dairy’ means ‘convenience store’. When I
once told my English friends that I was ‘popping down the road to the dairy to
get some milk’, they looked at me very strangely and thought that if you need
milk in New Zealand you walk down the road and get it directly from a farm,
probably milking the cow yourself. No. A ‘dairy’ is a miniature (and
very expensive) supermarket, usually in a residential area.
10)
She’ll be ’right
The saying ‘she’ll be ’right’ neatly sums up the entire Kiwi attitude to
life. It means ‘don’t worry, the chances of something bad happening aren’t
that high, and even if something bad does happen, it’s nothing we can’t handle;
it’ll all turn out all right in the end’. It means ‘don’t stress’; ‘that’s good
enough’ – ‘Reckon we’ve put enough mortar between those bricks?’ / ‘She’ll be
’right.’ Some criticise the complacency this phrase implies, but
others embrace it as a healthy outlook. Kiwis don’t sweat about the little
things and lead generally happier lives for it.(Ignorance is bliss as they
say!)
I hope all thinking of travelling to nz have taken note.
Recently a mate suggested that I am not just an American expat, I am Kiwi now. Living in New Zealand has changed me. Now I drink piss and eat tea (Amazing!!). I wear togs and jandals in the summer, woolies and jumpers in the winter. I ring with the phone and call in person. I holiday at a bach, and if I am awake early enough I enjoy a sparrow fart. Basically, life is good as gold and I am happy as Larry.
Who is Larry? I have no idea, nor do I know why he is happy. I do know that my inability to speak the language started immediately upon disembarking in New Zealand. As an American expat, I made the all too common assumption that I would easily understand Kiwi English Ten years later certain New Zealand words and colloquialisms continue to make me laugh.(They are a funny bunch to be sure!!!!!)
In America I park my car in the parking lot, walk on the sidewalk and ride in an elevator; now I use a carpark, a footpath and a lift. In New Zealand, kids use a rubber to erase their mistakes and a baby sleeps in a cot. If "I am shattered," Kiwi's hear tired. And should I be angry and announce, "I am pissed," well, no one will pay attention to the ramblings of a drunk. In New Zealand piss is beer, pissed is drunk, a piss-up is a party with alcohol, piss around is to waste time, pissing down refers to a rain storm, piss offimplies go away and finally pissed off is angry – for an adult. Angry kids don't get pissed off or have tantrums, but rather throw a wobbly.
I dropped two words from my vocabulary: fanny (trust me, don't say it) and root (to have sex). On the bright side I can now say "blow me down" (expression of surprise), I know bugger all (not much), or rattle your dags (hurry up).
Kiwi speak includes many Maori words. In the language of the indigenous people the letter combination "WH" makes the sound "F." No problem for words like Wh?nau (extended family), however I still laugh at the popular Whakarewarewa Forest and the New Zealand ski field called "Whakapapa" (fak-a-papa).
Here's an interesting tidbit; Whakapapa is on Mt. Ruapehu, an active volcano. Kiwis ski here anyway. Thousands of them every year without worry, which brings me to the next oddity:
"She'll be right mate."
In this case it's not the words themselves, but rather the cultural phenomena that goes with it. Sometimes I see it as a wonderfully relaxed way to go through life. Things have a way of working themselves out. "No worries. She'll be right mate." At other times I roll my eyes in wonder. Question someone who is skiing on a volcano, climbing an unstable tree, jumping on a trampoline on the driveway without safety nets, the answer will probably be, "No worries. She'll be right mate."
Then there is food, or more specifically, tea. If I invite someone for tea, they expect dinner. Morning tea is a coffee. Afternoon tea is a snack. If I just want a cup of tea, it's a cuppa. Although, sometimes morning tea is a snack and a cuppa is coffee, usually served with a bikkie, which I used to call a cookie. When I am asked to "bring a plate," it is assumed there will be food on it to share, and if that food is to be "pudding," well then any dessert will do. However, if it is the American style pudding they want, they would have asked me to bring a mousse.
Confused? If not completely baffled yet, simply try and order that cup of coffee. I had thought Starbucks was difficult before I became an expat. Now if I want black coffee, I can either get filter coffee (as in the type made with a Mr. Coffee look-alike), an espresso, or a "long black" which is an espresso served with a side of boiling water. Personally, I prefer milk, so my options are macchiato, flat white, cappuccino, café latte, mochaccino, or a latte macchiato. And should I accidentally defer to my Americanisms and ask for cream rather than milk, I will get a strange look, followed by a dollop of whipped cream. Before adding it to my coffee, I would add sugar, as New Zealand "cream" is simply whipped, no sugar added.
Good luck finding plain "sugar" on a typical grocery shelf. Just from New Zealand's largest sugar company, Chelsea, I found: raw sugar, white sugar, caster sugar, icing sugar, soft brown sugar, coffee crystals, demerara sugar, organic sugar and dark cane sugar. What's the difference? I used to wonder until it was simplified for me; caster sugar is closest to American sugar, icing sugar mirrors powdered sugar and brown sugar seems to translate across cultures.
It's not always complicated. Just don't violate the unwritten food rules:
• Sandwiches have a required layer of fat – mayonnaise, butter or margarine. Therefore, a peanut butter sandwich has butter, not jelly. (Jelly is actually American jello and can be served with ice cream.)
• Baked beans can be served cold and eaten with a fork straight from the tin, or if heated, they go on toast with a fried egg on top.
• Sausage is served on one slice of buttered white bread, folded over like a bun.
• Hamburgers don't come with pickles, but rather a slice of beetroot. (by including "beet" this becomes a family friendly use of the word root).
And don't even get me started on that vile spread Kiwis call Marmite.
Just in case you are still confused, here are my tips to avoid the top 10 common funny New Zealand language blunders:
1. If you are told to bring a plate, be sure it has food on it to share.
2. If you are angry, remember to say you are "pissed off" (not just pissed).
3. Remember to cheer for your favorite team, not root for them.
4. If it's pissing down, bring an umbrella.
5. Don't go to the shops looking for woolies (like I did). When they tell you to put your woolies on, it refers to any warm layers.
6. If your mate tells you about someone pushing up the daisies, look sad; they are talking about someone who is dead and buried.
7. Don't worry about what you will do with a box of fluffy ducks. It's just a happy expression and completely bird-free.
8. That guy walking down the street wearing tiny shorts that are too tight – that's a New Zealand fashion called stubbies.
9. A sparrow fart is just an early morning sunrise.
10. If you give a kiwi kid a choice of two foods, their polite answer will undoubtedly be "I don't mind." Just accept it and make your own choice.
No worries mate, you'll be right now that it's all sorted. Good on you for giving it a go!
On his recent tour of New Zealand, the Pope took a couple of days out of his itinerary for an impromptu visit to the wild outdoors of the far North of New Zealand. Way up on desolate Ninety Mile beach, near the mouth of the Te Paki Stream, safe in his 4X4 Pope-mobile, his entourage came upon an enormous commotion in the water. They rushed to see what it was about and upon approaching the scene the Pope noticed a hapless man in the surf wearing a Wallabies rugby jersey, struggling frantically to free himself from the jaws of a sixteen foot shark.
Almost immediately a speedboat containing three men wearing All Black jerseys roared into view from beyond the surf line. One of the men took aim and fired a harpoon into the sharks' head, immobilizing it instantly. The other two reached down and pulled the Aussie from the water and using long clubs, finished the shark off. They bundled the bleeding, semi conscious man into the speedboat along with the dead shark and then prepared for a hasty retreat, when they heard frantic shouting from the shore. It was of course the Pope.
He summoned them to the beach. When they reached the shore the Pope went into raptures about the rescue and said, "I give you my best Papal blessing for your brave actions. I had heard that there is racists xenophobic divide between Australia & New Zealand, but now I have seen with my own eyes that this is not true. I can see that your societies are true examples of racial harmony and could serve as a model on which other nations could follow." He blessed them all and drove off in a cloud of dust.
As he departed, the harpoonist turned the other Kiwis and asked: "Who the bloody hell was that??!!" "That," one answered, "was his Holiness the Pope. He is in direct contact with God and has access to all God's wisdom." "Well," the harpoonist replied, "he knows bugger all about shark fishing! Now - how's that bait holding up, or do we need to get another one?"
The Australian Post Office has had to recall their latest stamps. They had pictures of the Australian Rugby test players on them.
People couldn't figure out which side to spit on
The Wallabies rugby practice was delayed nearly two hours today after a player reported finding an unknown white powdery substance on the practice field.
Head coach Eddie Jones immediately suspended practice while police and federal investigators were called to investigate. After a complete analysis, investigating forensic experts determined that the white substance unknown to players was the try line. Practice was resumed after special agents decided the team was unlikely to encounter the substance again.
Or this lot!!!!
What should you do if an Aussie throws a grenade at you?
Pull the pin out and throw it back.
Did you hear about the Aussie who had a brain transplant?
The brain rejected him a week later.
What's the difference between yogurt and Australians?
At least yogurt starts with a little culture.
A Pom wanted to become an Irishman, so he visited a doctor to find out how to go about this. "Well" said the doctor, "this is a very delicate operation and there is a lot that can go wrong. I will have to remove half your brain". "That's OK," said the Pom. "I've always wanted to be Irish and I'm prepared to take the risk". The operation went ahead but the Pom woke to find a look of horror on the face of the doctor. "I'm so terribly sorry!!" the doctor said. "Instead of removing half the brain, I've taken the whole brain out". The patient replied, "No worries, mate!!"
“Unlike many European countries, but in common with other ‘Anglo’ countries such as Britain, the United States and Australia, New Zealanders do not have a particularly high regard for intellectual activity (Hahahhahaahahhahahahaahhaa now why does that not surprsie me), particularly if it is more theoretical than practical. This is linked with the idea of ‘kiwi ingenuity’ (see above), which supposes that all problems are better solved by seeing what works than by applying a theory.
This distrust of theory manifested itself in social policy of the early and mid twentieth century, which historian Michael Bassett described as ’socialism without doctrines’: although the policies of the first Labour and other governments pursued traditionally socialist goals, they were not based on any coherent theory. A major break with this tradition came in the 1980s when the fourth Labour and fourth National governments enacted a series of reforms based on free market ideology.
This reinforced many New Zealanders’ distrust of intellectual theory, as many consider that the reforms increased poverty and inequality in New Zealand. Despite the prevailing mood of anti-intellectualism, New Zealand has reasonably high rates of participation in tertiary education and has produced a number of internationally renowned scholars and scientists, including Ernest Rutherford, J.G.A. Pocock and Alan MacDiarmid. It should be noted that both Rutherford and Pocock spent most of their professional lives in Britain (Hahahahhahaha again I am not suprised!). For many years this was a common occurrence, and a consequence both of New Zealanders’ attitudes and the low population which made it hard to support major research.
Attribution
Because New Zealanders often have to relocate to achieve worldwide fame and fortune, New Zealanders are keen to claim famous people as being New Zealanders, however short their residency in New Zealand might have been.(Bwahahahahahahahahaha this is hilarious and shows how immature the kiwi oaks are!!)
While people born in New Zealand are certainly identified as New Zealanders, those who attended a New Zealand school or resided in New Zealand also qualify, irrespective of national origin. This sometimes leads to famous people and innovations being identified as coming from both New Zealand and another country—such as the pop group Crowded House, the race horse Phar Lap and the actor Russell Crowe, all of whom have been associated with Australia and New Zealand.
Because the measure of New Zealand success was often how well a person did internationally, anything from ‘Overseas’ is seen as holding more cultural capital than the local equivalent, regardless of its quality. ( It would appear there is an inferiority complex at work?)
This means that New Zealanders are often lured to the performances of “international acts”. This is exacerbated by New Zealand’s isolation and small population causing it to be skipped by the international tours of all but the most commercially successful musicians and performers. The flipside to this phenomenon is that famous people from overseas can be quickly embraced by New Zealanders if they visit regularly or for an extended period or claim an affinity with the country.”
Regular visits by Beeno would no doubt result in wisespread acclamation but I am, not into trhat sort of thing!
.Comment left by staedtler
Well it would appear kiwis are pretty insular, immature and insecure. Nevermind nobody is perfect.http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3355/features/2475/the_unfriendly_isles.html
“We invite them to live here, then set them up for failure. Immigrants and refugees have a tough time settling in New Zealand, and it’s costing them – and us – dearly”“New Zealand has never been particularly welcoming to immigrants, but a National Business Review-Phillip Fox poll this month suggested that attitudes of ordinary New Zealanders to non-white immigrants are hardening.”
