Speaking "Kiwi"

Bree in her "togs".

One of the things that made it easy for us to come to New Zealand for my sabbatical was the fact that it is an English speaking country. That has made it easy for Bree to be able to fit into the school system and for me to be able to meet with farmers. But the Kiwi’s add their twist to everything and that includes the English language. In the spirit of a typical 6 year old Bree has embraced this and prefers to use the Kiwi terminology over ours. She is even starting to speak with a bit of an accent.

Some of the words are quite different from at home and to me many seem to be very similar to British terminology. Bree and I have started keeping a list of some of the ones that we hear very often or that we find quite different. Here is our list:

Bikkies – cookies, it is short for biscuits. These go with tea which you have in the morning and afternoon (similar to our coffee break at work and snack time at school). There is also tea in the evening which means dinner. I have had to clarify this a few times as when I am invited over for tea I am never sure if it is a cup of tea or for a meal.

Brilliant – great. I tend to use this a lot now as in we had a brilliant time.

Chemist – pharmacy.

Chilly bin – cooler.

Chips – French fries. Crisps are what we call chips.

Fizzy – pop or soft drink.

Flash – fancy. Bree loves this one, she calls everything flash now.

Fringe – hair bangs.

Ice block – popsicle.

Jandals – flip flops. Comes from fact that these sandals used to come from Japan.

Keen – interested in, excited by. Many of my colleagues use this word such as he was a keen hiker.

Lollies – any type of candy. Bree uses this word all the time as in “Mom I want a lollie!”.

Mufti – plain clothes, as opposed to the school uniforms that everyone wears here.

Sweet as – an expression used to say things are good. I think it is really short for sweet as pie or sweet as sugar.

Togs – swimsiuit. The first time I saw a sign at the pool that togs must be worn I thought they meant sandals and went back and put mine on!

Tramp – hiking.

Ute – a truck, it is short for utility vehicle.

There are many more words but these are ones that we use quite often. There is also a tendency to abbreviate or shorten everything over here such as uni for university and kindy for kindergarten. This also goes for most of the towns and everyone here calls Palmerston North "Palmy".

I have grown to really enjoy the words here as they are often more fun than our equivalents at home. I think Bree likes them because many end in ie or y making them sound cute or more child like. The accent has grown on me as well although I still can have a tough time understanding some people.

As a Canadian one of the terms I find amusing is the use of the word eh. We tend to think of this as a very Canadian way of speaking but in New Zealand it is used very often. Generally it is at the end of a question such as in the weather is fine today, eh? It must be common among the kids at school because Bree is saying it all the time now. It isn’t a short, crisp eh either, you draw it out a little. But learning the language is part of the cultural experience and as with everything we are trying to embrace it while we are here!