Article about Australian English by Miley

So, in Australia you speak English like in England or America, but lot`s of words are pronounced different. And often there are other vocabularies as in the BrE or in the AmE. So if you were in Australia for holiday it would be very confusing for you. But in this article I will give you some basic information about AusE to help you.

So as I said Australian (Aussies) pronounce some words different, because it is a non-rhotic language. This means that even though there is an „r“ in the spelling of a word it is not always pronounced. A lot of endings of words are spelled like an „a“ for example „-ure,-er,-o“ and other sounds. For example the word „nature“ is pronounced „/nata/“.

Another specific pronounciation is the t-flap, which works like that: If an intervocalic /t/ stands between vowels it will be pronounced like a „d“. An example for the t-flap is „better“, because in Australia they pronounce it „/beda/“.

In Australia there are some forms of words, which are like abbreviations. For example the Australian people are called „Aussie“. So they clip the word „Australian“ to „Aus“. Then they did a hypocoristic. So they add a suffix. Now it is „Aussie“. After that they change the pronounciation to /auzi/.

In Australia they have lot`s of Idioms. This is an expression with a meaning that cannot be guessed from the meanings of the individual words. An example for an Idiom is „Dry as a dead dingo`s donga“. That means if something is as dry as a dead dingo`s donga, it is very dry indeed. Or another example is: Flash as a rat with a gold tooth“. This Idiom means that someone who is as flash as a rat with a gold tooth tries hard to impress people by their appearance or behavior.

There are some Aboriginal words in Australian English too. For example in Australia you do not say sweater like in AmE but you say jumper. There are much more Aboriginal words in AusE like bathers which means swimming costume in British English and so on and so on.

So Australian English is more similar to the AmE than to the BrE. Because AusE pronounciation shares some with the AmE (t-flapping). But there are some features which AusE shares with the BrE (non-rhotic). But even more with AmE. So AusE an AmE are really similar but the American pronounce the „r“ which the Aussies does not do. Because they speak it like an „a“.

So as a summary you can say the Australian English can be really confusing and difficult. If you go to Australia it will be very difficult and you defenitly will have a very hard beginning. But I think after some weeks there will not be problems anymore.