Eight Must-Know Aussie Slang Words if You’ve Just Moved to Australia

Yeah, nah. Nah, yeah.

If you ask most people, they’ll say Australia’s national language is English.

And while this is technically true, we Aussies do have a special way with the English language.

If you’ve just moved down under it can be hard to get equipped with living somewhere new. And you’ll need to know what the lingo is to start your student life here.

These are some Aussie slang words and phrases you could integrate into your vocabulary.

Maccas.

Is it our national dish? No. But it is what we refer to as McDonalds around this part of the world.

It’s an Australian rite of passage to ‘go for a Maccas run’ A.K.A grab a Maccas after school or after an exam.

Melbourne, Australia is also where the first McCafe started in 1993. Which is no surprise given how much we Aussies (especially Melbournians) love our coffee.

Bathers and thongs.

We promise we are NOT talking about your underwear.

Bathers is what we refer to as a swimsuit. And thongs are actually the slippers/flip-flops/sandals we wear on our feet. Some Aussies have definitely experienced going overseas, asking where to buy “thongs” and received a very stunned expression in return 🫠

As an Australian phrase, bathers and thongs go hand-in-hand down under.

Cozzie.

Cozzie could be referring to two different things here in Australia. They could either be another word for a swimsuit (see: bathers).

Or they could be referring to the cost-of-living crisis, as in the “cozzie livs”.

Arvo.

Arvo means afternoon.

Used in a sentence it’d sound like: “see you at tomorrow’s arvo lecture” or “free for a kick of the footy in the arvo?” or “this arvo I’ve got to work.”

Flat out.

This is another way of saying we’re “very busy”.

As in “I can’t hang out tonight I’m flat out with assignments and revision right now”

Reckon.

If Aussies say anything, I reckon we say the word reckon quite a lot.

It’s basically another way of saying “we think…”. Where someone else might say “I think it’s going to be a hot day today”, an Australian might say “I reckon today’s going to be swelting hot”.

Servo.

This is another word for a service/gas/petrol station. It’s where we go to fill up petrol, buy a meat pie or sausage roll and stopover on a road trip.

The word is used frequently enough that if you Google search servo in Australia, a list of the closest petrol stations will come up in the search results.

And the Aussie greeting: “Howya gaarn?”

If you’re looking for a way to greet people in Australia, always go for the “howya gaarn”.

Basically, it’s the way we ask people “how are you doing?” Us Aussies tend to say “how you going?” but somewhere down the line the pronunciation of the phrase has turned into “howya gaarn”

So if you can’t recall anything else on this list, always remember “howya gaarn”