How to Speak Kiwi: First off, 'Kiwi' is the term New Zealanders use to refer to themselves. It is also a small flightless bird that is their national symbol (and on all their currency). New Zealand owes as much of it's history to Captain Cook and British & Scottish settlers as it does to the indigenous Maori people and that is reflected in their dialect. Useful terms and expressions: Sweet as! = Great! Awesome! Good as Gold! Sweet! (This is my favorite New Zealand term and I picked it up quickly. Don't say any words after 'as'. Pretty soon, you'll be using all sorts of terms like "Good as" "Sad as" and so forth) blokes = guys sussed = worked out ("Haven’t you sussed it yet?") Pakeha = a White/European person to the Maori hire = rent (hire a taxi, video hire) chemist = pharmacist rubbish = garbage (literally and figuratively) Plunket = adjective describing the society that promotes babies’ health (they also come around asking for donations) Mum = Mom tea = dinner ("Are we having chicken for tea?") teatime = dinnertime Morning/Afternoon Teaa coffee break - with light snack; also known as 11sies) handle = a beer glass with a handle tumblers = drinking glasses (as opposed to a wine glass) without handles section = lot/area/property (i.e. “It takes him 2 hours to mow his section”) singlet = tank top full stop = period en suite = has a bathroom attached ("the place has 4 en-suite rooms") rugged up = bundled up dearer = more expensive ("But that restaurant is dearer.") All Black = a player on New Zealand’s national rugby team, the All Blacks (they are called that because (drumroll) their uniform is all black and because, according to lonely planet, they were called the "All Backs" by British press on an early visit to England.) Tall Black = a player on New Zealand’s basketball team Silver Ferns = cool fern with a silver bottom found in NZ that’s also the name of New Zealand's netball team and is on some New Zealand coins series = season (of television ("The fifth series of Friends starts next month.")) greenstone = jade (Hokitika is famous for greenstone) Watties = canned food, NZ style Bounty Dark = the best candy bar in NZ; it is kind of like Mounds tramping = doing some serious hiking Aotearoa = Land of the Long White Cloud (what Maori call New Zealand) bush = out-of-the-way natural spots, forested areas ("We camped out in the bush") BYO = a sign at a restaurant that says this means you can bring your own alcohol to drink while eating there. CV = Curriculum Vitae = resume biscuit = cookie afghan = a chocolate biscuit motorway = freeway/expressway zed = Z ("The web site is at dub dub dub dot xtra dot c o dot en zed") trousers = pants whinjing = whining, (whinjer = whiner) POM = Brit (‘Prisoner of Mother England’), often used together with ‘whinjing’ petrol = gasoline pikelet = mini pancake jam = jelly jelly = jello lemonade = sprite or 7-up (Not a lemony-tasting non-carbonated thirst-quenching drink) dag = someone who’s funny and cute (apparent real meaning: crap on a sheep’s ass that you have to get rid of before shearing) JAFA = Just another fucking Aucklander ("Where are you from?" "Oh, you’re a JAFA.") sconed = hit in the head nappies = Diapers roundabout = traffic circle Give Way = the most common road sign; it is usually where Americans normally see Stop signs. It means "Yield" choice = fantastic, great ciggies = cigarettes knackered = tired (the word for ‘neutered’ when referring to a horse) EFTPOS = Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale = basically an ATM card that you can use like cash at supermarkets, restaurants, petrol stations, pubs, anywhere tallboy = dresser (a tall one as opposed to a vanity or nightchest) shifting= moving (as in to a new house or just moving an object "Can you help me shift next weekend? Can you help me shift all these boxes?") boot = trunk (of a car) flat = apartment apartment = a high-end flat flatmate = roommate roommate = lover fry-pan = frying pan wee = small tart = slut trolley = cart (as in shopping trolley, luggage trolley) Trundler Park = Shopping Cart Return in a parking lot. my news = stuff that happened to me yesterday beetroot, pickled onions Milo = yummy brand of a hot chocolate mix pub = bar shout = buy a round (of drinks) ("It's my shout tonight.") Baldwin Street = reputed to be the steepest street in the world (in Dunedin) NPC = National Provincial Championship telly = TV ("Whats on the telly?" "I’m watching the All Blacks in an hour, so you can’t watch Shortland Street." "You bloody bastard") GST = (goods and service tax) the 12.5% tax on everything you buy Xtra = my favorite internet sevice provider (motto: "Xtraordinary people, New Zealanders") Telecom vs Vodaphone = the 025 vs 021 mobile phone choice mobile = cell phone Mobil = one of the petrol station chains Ben and Jerry = two people New Zealanders do not know Good on you = good for you, good job (pronounced 'gud AWN ya') Takeaways = Take Out (usually chinese or fish and chips) cheers = thanks (it is also something to say when drinking a toast) mate = friend, bud, man (on the phone: "I’m bringing the Speights." "Cheers, mate") southerly = a chill wind from the south (from Antarctica) trainers = sneakers bugger! = sh*t! buggared = screwed, tired, f*cked (in a bad way) stuffed = f*cked (up) ("I didn’t pay my Telecom bill, I’m stuffed now." "Who stuffed it up?" "I stuffed something up.") Hongi = rubbing noses against each other's and sharing the breath of life = how Maori greet each other (or how Maori at touristy places may greet you) Instant Kiwi = one of the NZ lotteries Haka = a maori dance / war chant (usually refers to the COOL one) orientated = oriented Hens Night and Bucks parties (Bachelorette Parties and Bachelor Parties) Christchurch = the biggest city in South Island footpath = sidewalk How are you going? = how are you doing? How’s it going? carpark = a parking spot, parking lot, or parking garage drink-driving = drunk driving barby = barbecue sultana = raisins New Zealandisms: If anything, New Zealand is know for its adventure sports. The famous A.J. Hackett invented bunjy jumping (which you can do in almost any city). Skydiving, Jet-boating and other made-in-New Zealand sports like Zorbing are in abundance as well. Toilets have half-flush and full flush buttons and the water swirls BOTH ways so you can’t test the Northern Hemisphere/Southern Hemisphere theory. The speed limit everywhere is 100 kph. Sure, it is easy to remember, but it is only 62 mph. Luckily, whenever there is a camera recording your speed, they warn you with sign first. You can go exactly 10 kph over without getting a ticket, but go 11 and you get one. You don’t go to the convenience store, you go to the dairy. There’s only one convenience store: StarMart. Because drink-driving is such a big problem in Australia and New Zealand, they try to warn you with scary commericals on television and freaky billboards. I can clearly remember four very traumatizing ads I saw there. One I had to change the channel when it came on. One thing they've done to reduce drink-driving is create checkpoints. They stop people at random on the road (usually a road outside a pub on a weekend night) and breathalize people. If you've had more than two drinks, you get revoked. Sometimes, however, the checkpoints are there during the day just to make sure your car is registered and that you have a legal license (I've been stopped twice for that). You are not required to have any sort of car insurance in New Zealand. AA = AAA ((American) Automobile Association) A.A. = AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) You drive on the left, but give way to the right Gas is in litres. Two odd traffic rules: 1. No turnes whatsoever on a red light. 2. Any person crossing you from the right has the right of way (this is the American equivalent of a person who is making a left turn at the intersection having the right of way over a person making a right turn onto the same street. It's backwards backwards. A4 is the standard size of paper. It is slightly longer but less wide than letter Dates are given in Day/Month/Year order (which confused friendly New Zealand checkpoint officers who were trying to find my birthdate on my license) There are 3 million people in New Zealand. There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand. You do the math. There is no tipping in New Zealand. Newscasters say Kia Ora when they begin the news. It is the equivalent of "Aloha" in Maori. Ski resort? You mean a dirt road up to tundra with a pull-lift? (Yes, I'm biased. I usually ski in Colorado) The whole skiing in July and August thing is cool, though. A bathroom is where the bath is. Otherwise, it is a toilet or a loo. To 'have a 12' is to have a (12 oz) pint. An average house in NZ will probably have Tea Towels, Tea Spoons (cute little mini-spoons) and a matching Pillowcase - Duvet Cover set. Everyone in NZ will ask if you’re from Canada first so they don’t offend Canadians by daring to assume they're AMERICANS. NZ has de-regulated electricity. Therefore, prices are painfully high. However, they have free health care / medical insurance, so that’s a nice bonus. New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa are quite interconnected because of rugby (these, the only three English-speaking southern hemisphere countries, know their rubgy) At the store, you can buy "toast bread" or "sandwich bread" Sandwich bread appears to be thinner. I never quite understood the logic here. A new way to make dressing? Put sweetened condensed milk together with vinegar. It works! Otago, the area where I lived, is a region in the southeastern part of South Island Otago Daily Times is the main newspaper of the region Otago Gaily Times is a newsletter for the gay/bi/trans alliance of that region Know your NZ beers: Speights (motto "pride of the south for 125 years") DB Draught (motto "earned") Steinlager (motto "the hungry beer" Know your NZ TV shows: Shortland Street (daily half-hour prime time completely New Zealand soad opera), Street Legal, Family Confidential, What Now?, Mercury Lane, Being Eve, Tagata Pasifika Know your NZ TV channels. If you don’t have Sky Digital, then you have 5 channels called 'One' '2' '3' 'Four' (respectively on, you guessed it, channel 1, 2, 3 and 4) and 'Prime' (which is usually channel 5) The current Prime Minister is Helen Clark. Three out of the five New Zealand political parties are headed by women. New Zealand was the first country to give women the right to vote. Yay! New Zealand money has coins in the equivalent of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, and 200 cents. They phased out pennies! This is a brilliant idea! Why can't we all do this! Ask a random person in New Zealand, they will know what a whakapapa is. Guy Fawkes Day is a strange holiday I found out about. It is inherited from England and occurs on 5 November. Everyone sets off firecrackers and burns effigys of a guy who tried to blow up the Parliament building to celebrate that he failed. Since I learned this at a pub, I thought they were making it up. But, apparently, this really is a holiday. Words we know the meaning of, but don’t use in regular conversation like the kiwis here: wee, fortnight, reckon ("I reckon it’s been a fortnight since the wee car was working.") Boxing Day (the day after Xmas where you, um, box up all your Xmas gifts and give them to charity or something like that) is a major holiday in New Zealand. Most businesses are closed (all are closed on Christmas Day) And just to make trash day annoying, Jan 2nd is a holiday, too (I think the official title is "Recover from your New Year's hangover day") Outlets are slanted and have two or three pronged holes. Also, many outlets have their own switches (so you can turn off your outlet... good thing if kids/pets are around I suppose) Light switches are randomly backwards. The save energy commericals, when they says "Switch it off" puts the switch up. Spellings that are different: Organisation, colour, honour, realise, programme, flavour, harbour, centre, theatre, colour, odour, behaviour, licence, Labour Day. Type in this sentence and watch your spellchecker go mad: "I didn’t realise the colour of the armour was favourable to the quest for honour. I apologise." Take a Quiz: Q: If you drink, then drive, you’re a _______ A: bloody idiot. This is the actual phrase used in the aforementioned anti-drink-driving propaganda ads. OTHER: The three main cities in New Zealand are Wellington (its capital), Auckland, and Christchurch. Islandy Auckland is the only city you can fly to directly from the States. It is in the north of North Island. Green, hilly Wellington is at south of North Island and is where you catch the 3 hour ferry to South Island. Christchurch is in the middle of South Island on the east coast (and no, I don't have a clue why it is named that). Transportation and Lodging in New Zealand: There is a bus system, mostly used by backpackers, but not really a train system, so renting or buying a car is your best bet for any long-term travel. Luckily, buying and renting cars short term is very easy to do in Auckland. Not only is there a used car fair every Saturday and Sunday (I bought AND sold my car at the big Sunday fair at the fairgrounds - see AA for more info) but there are tons of agencies that will rent you a car or hire you a car that's been serviced for as long as you want and guarantee to buy it back at half the price. Getting an inspection is 'recommended' by everyone but be warned: at the car fair, there is just one fellow who does everything. Therefore, out of the hundreds and hundreds of people buying cars, only five or six can possibly have an inspection. My inspection was really overkill. Afterward, every mechanic I took it to said it was in great condition for its age. Hostels in New Zealand, I'm told, are the nicest in the world. If you stick with YHA (Hostelling International) hostels, you are guaranteed decent quality (i.e. soap in the bathrooms, decent dishes and a clean kitchen) and the majority of others are usually quite acceptable (though bigger city ones tend to be worse). Hotels are fairly nice too, for their price, and a lot of times they come with fridges and stoves so you can store and cook your own meals. In summer, booking at least two days ahead is wise, especially in popular hostels. Te Anau (the closest you can get to the biggest destination: Milford Sound) is not a very big town so book especially early there -- or else you will end up driving the 5 hours from Queenstown, and 5 hours back in the same day -- I've done it. It's a nice, but long, drive.) As for hostels, book ahead a day or two in summer. Winter is no problem at all however and you have your pick of a bunch of nice, empty hostels. New Zealand Sports: The most popular sport for men in New Zealand is, no question, rugby (but is followed closely by cricket). The most popular sport for women in New Zealand is, no question, netball (but there are women's rubgy teams). When I came to New Zealand, I had only vaguely heard of these and had not the foggiest clue how to play. Here is a quick (and mostly uninformed since I'm so not a sports expert) guide... Rugby = Rugby is probably most easily compared to American Football (which is called "gridiron" by many to distinguish it) because it involves two teams crashing into each other to get a ball across a goal on the other end. The main differences are: -Rugby players are buff; they wear minimal padding and no big helmets -Instead of a scrimmage to begin the play, the players start out in a 'scrum' in which three (?) players get very close and personal and try to kick the ball, dropped in the middle of the two teams, toward other waiting teammates. -The ball, though shaped roughly the same, is slightly bigger, more roundish and softer. -The play does not stop when the ball is dropped -When a player is tackled, they must drop the ball and an extremely complicated process ensues on just how the surrounding players are allowed to pick it up and continue with the play. -A touchdown is called a "try" and they have something that is equivalent to a field goal, too. Cricket = Are you kidding? A year there and I still don't get it. Vaguely like baseball, someone throws a ball and another person, with a funny-looking flat bat, tries to hit it. If they do, then they run back and forth as many times as they can before the ball returns. Cricket games are stopped for tea. They can also go on for days. I find that amusing. Netball = Netball is closest to basketball in that two teams try to make baskets into the basket on the opposing side, but there are a lot of important differences: -The balls are more like volleyballs and the baskets have no backboards -The court is split into thirds -There is no dribbling; in fact you can't move beyond a single step if you have the ball in hand -You can only have the ball in hand for three seconds -Therefore: this is a game about passing -You can bounce the ball off the sides of the court, but don't let the ball touch any other part of your body -Like soccer or hockey, the players are separated into sections. Some players are solely defensive and cannot even come forward of the far line. Usually only 2 or so players are allowed to shoot within the 'circle' and 2 or 3 players that can run the whole court can shoot, but not from within the 'circle' around the basket. -When someone is shooting, you have to stay at least three feet away from them -Games where the national team is playing are called "tests" ("There's a test on tonight at 8") So, now you must go visit New Zealand! Full of white sand beaches, snow-capped peaks, and a host of friendly beer-drinking nifty-accented residents, you gotta love it! Now you know how to talk and what to say. Good luck!