Australian English by chocolatecake123

In Australia the people do not speak the “normal“ British- or American English. They speak Australian English, which is different to BE and to AE. The people who live in Australia are called “Aussies“. Aussie is for example a word in Australian English.

A lot of words in AusE are pronounced like an “-a“ at the end. Another fact about the pronounciation is the  “t-flap“, that means that the “t“ in a word is pronounced like a /r/ (“t-flap). An example for this is: “better“ or “difficulty“. These two words are pronounced /bera/ and /diffikvlrj/.

There is also the “American English Hypocoristics“ which means that some words are clipped or added a suffix. “Journo“ is for example the clipped word of “journalist“. The word formation processe for “journalist“ is, that they first short the word to “journ“ and then they add the suffix “o“. Now you have the expression “journo“ how they say in Australia.

I can also tell you how they form “Aussie“: first they clip the word to “Aus“, after that they add the suffix “sie“ to “Aussie“ /a:zi/. So they did the hypercoristics.

“Idioms“ are other typical word types for AusE. The definition of an idiom is, that an idiom is an expression with a meaning that can not be guessed from the meanings oft he individual words. Examples fore idioms are “ace“ which means “good“ or “Rattle your dags!“ which means “Hurry up!“.

But there much more idioms, which are more confusing, for example: “blood is worth bottling“, this means somebody praise you for doing or being something special. Another strange idiom is “like a shak on a rock“. They use this expression when somebody feels lonely or isolated.

The difference between AusE, AE and BE is mainly the pronounciation. So they pronounce the word-ending “-re,-er“ in BE like “-re“, in AE like “-er“ and in AusE like an “-a“. The “t-flap“ is also a difference between the English types, because the “t-flap“ exists only in Australian English.

In my opinion, Australian English is really difficult to understand if you do not know the rule to pronounce the words. But if you know them you will get used to it. Just remember the “t-flap“ and the pronounced “-a“ at the “-re or -er“ ending. Finally you can do it if you belive in yourself!