2016-01-02 02:10 Aussie English
Y (Kuma's owner)
It was a long time ago when I first arrived in Australia.
I had studied a little about Aussie English before I came and I thought I was well-prepared.
However, after I arrived in Sydney I keenly realised the difficulty of accent. I had enrolled in an English school. On the first day, a teacher said to us "G'day!", but to me it sounded like "Get die" . I was surprised from the start.
Fortunately, the family I was staying with spoke very clear English like English teaching materials. As I had been getting used to the teacher's accent, it made it much easier to understand other people's pronunciation.
But there were other hurdles ahead I had to jump.
Japanese learn American English at school. As you know, American English and British English are different. One day when I was walking on the street, a car came and stopped beside me. There were two ladies in the car and one of them spoke to me.
"Do you wanna lift?"
Suddenly, my head was filled with question marks. Yes, I had studied the word "lift". I knew lift means elevator but I was on the street! I thought that lady might be a strange person. She didn't look like it but maybe she was. I said "No, thank you." politely and they went. After that, I talked about what I experienced to the family where I was staying. They said a lift means a car ride.
Aussie English was not built in a day.