One thing people almost always seem to ask my mom when they find out she’s from Ireland is, why don’t you have an accent? Of course, they may not know how long she has lived here so the question makes sense, but my mom has actually lived in California for more than half of her life. It’s funny though because whenever she gets on the phone with her mom or her siblings she always seems to get it back a little.
Being in Ireland over the summer with my family was awesome and we got really used to hearing everything in an Irish accent. My uncle Dave, a taxi driver in Dublin, has an especially strong accent; a lot of Americans wouldn’t even know what he was saying half the time. Another thing that makes it different over there is the words they use. They often have things that they say completely different from us that mean the exact same thing. For example, if you were going to throw something in the trash can, you would be throwing it in the rubbish bin. People say garbage or trash too but rubbish would be more common. Here’s a short list of some things I noticed that were different:
Trunk (of your car) = Boot
Drug Store (like CVS) = Chemist
Candy = Sweets (Nobody says candy. We always go to the corner shop to buy sweets, not candy)
Chips (Like Lays or Pringles) = Crisps
French Fries = Chips
Pacifier = Soother
Stroller = Pram
Tide Pools = Rock Pools
Knock on Wood = Touch Wood
Pretty much my favorite slang over there would have to be deadly. Instead of saying cool or awesome they always say deadly. My other favorite is probably craic (pronounced crack) If they do something that’s really fun they might say something like, “It’s great craic”. The problem with this one is, when they’re in America people may think that they are actually talking about an illicit substance. ( In case you were wondering, people in Ireland do have a language, it’s called Gaelic and they have to learn it in school but pretty much everyone speaks English and most people don’t speak Irish on a daily basis at all. ) Anyways, I’m done educating you on Irish slang. Hope you feel informed J
3 comments:
I was reading a non-fiction book about Ireland a little while ago ("Angela's Ashes") and it included a lot of slang. At first it took me a while to figure out what they were referring to (like pram) but I eventually understood most of the words. Irish accents are awesome!
how neat
thats so cool! :)
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