オーストラリアのスラング英語～mongrel

111012.mp3　(3分23秒)
オーストラリアのオパール鉱山が舞台の映画『ポビーとディンガン』を観ながら、ETC英会話のブレンダン先生のレッスンを受けています。

ネイティブスピーカーではない私たちが、スラングを使って話すことはできるだけ避けたほうがよさそうです。でも、スラングの意味を知っていることは必要かもしれません。

ブレンダン先生が、映画の中で使われていたこんなスラングを解説してくれました。

Mongrel just means a bad person.

I don’t think it’s in other English language.
It’s probably very old English and came out in 1700.

It disappeared from England, but stayed in Australia.

So lots of old words, probably from the slums or the Cockney area in London, that is where Australian convicts came from, Irish or Cockney, they had a lots of slang in Britain at that time.

They brought that by boat, spoke it in Australia. It disappeared from England, stayed in Australia.

So You will find a lot of words like that.

So it’s interesting culture, because it’s very, it’s from old slum area in England, I suppose.

Q: What did he say?

Mongrel.

So it’s very bad word. If you say someone is mongrel, he is not nice guy.

Now this guy, they thought he was stealing from another opal miner.

That’s the worst thing you can do.

They call him, what did they call him? A ratter. A rat.

You know rat is a dirt creature and under the, you know, in a mine, and stealing

And that’s why they called him, so another word for a bad person, mongrel.

So I don’t suggest students use it. But they may hear it.

There are a lots of words that there are in English that I sometimes don’t use that words.

But you may hear it. And don’t say thank you when you hear mongrel.

So oh, you know that someone is not happy with your performance.

■出演
・ETC英会話のブレンダン先生
■聞き手
・青樹洋文

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