Ausztrál Nylevlecke 21

Hello again everyone! What a pleasure to start the new year with you. 

If you're game, let's go through the latest video which I uploaded this week. It's a classic nyelvlecke, which is always requested. I'm not 100% clear why an ausztral nyelvlecke is of interest. Isn't it perhaps the least relatable video you could ask for?? But what do I know.

I do have to note that there is a SATURATION of content on Australian slang on the internet now, and it's full of these cringe expressions no one ever says. I really want to tell you things that you might actually hear or notice, or touch on things that symbolise an Australian mentality, because I think that kind of stuff is even better! So here we go.

We start by mentioning how everything has been a little topsy turvy here (Mivel itt a dolgok a szokásosnál is jobban a feje tetejére álltak). A lot of foreigners make this 'upside down' joke and to be honest it always catches me off guard because it's not really front of mind thanks to old mate gravity.

I didn't belabour it but this video was late for a few reasons. We had a strong lockdown here for months where we weren't allowed to be outside for non-essential reasons for a while, and even when things opened up slightly that pandemic atmosphere really saps the spirit. Second, I started a new job and that's always a busy time, third this video was intended to be outside and the 'La Nina' weather event (lots of rain) meant it was bad weather all the time. The weather was a bit ordinary on this day, but was remarkable in comparison. And then lastly, it was Christmas and who has free time then. 

While in lockdown, one of the most common activities was cooking Hello Fresh. Hello Fresh is a subscription services that delivers meals you cook, and I wanted to make the joke as if I had been requesting Porkolt in a Carte-D'or tub. Because I can't think of a better way to store porkolt.

Getting to English computerised voice to pronounce a Hungarian sentence is always a bizarre exercise, you have it type it in like 'rend-deh-lay-shay-val'. 

In introducing the video I say, "fejezd be a csavros kiflid". You try coming up with an English translation for that one! I did the below. Up and Go is a breakfast milkshake thing and I bet about 0.01% of people got that one. 

I only know about the csavaros kifli and komuves actimel from you guys writing it to me.

I was also delighted to be able to say 'nincs kecmec' (a greatly underrated expression) before the 'Beszeljunk ausztralul', at which point Land Downunder plays. The last time I used Land Downunder briefly (on the Ausztral Nyelvlecke #20) I got a copyright strike and the video was blocked. Didn't happen this time! I noticed that one person in the comments caught the subtitle here when the song plays:

An uninteresting fact about this video is that I filmed most of it in the wrong quality. But quite frankly the lower quality adds to the nostalgia. It happened to be an extremely windy day as well, so I used this wind buffer thing on the microphone which proved to be pretty effective. It's that big fluffy thing in my pocket. It looks like this below and hazisarkany is obsessed with it! She'll steal it off the table then I'll find again strewn about the house.

A lot of people shared this image with me so it felt like a great way to bring up our Ausztral-Hungarian Birodalom. This is not my map! It was shared to me about a dozen times and they all had different sources. I'll give the owner credit if they ever come forward.  Otherwise, I've been talking about the Australian-Hungarian empire since a video in 2020 and I just love how it has taken off. You guys are so funny with your ideas and how you join in on the joke. Massive champs the lot of you.

The sequence that follows of the cool things in the birodalom is my favourite part oft] the video. They were:

• Tengerparti barbeque-k a trópusi Hegyeshalmon
• Weekends away in Vombathely
• MÁV expressz Kiskunfélegyházáról Wagga Wagga-ra
• Flat-white tejbegríz
• Puli kutya-tasmán ördög keresztezési program
• Há kettő Ó x Mézga Család crossover újraindítás

I left one out of editing, maybe I'll use it again later, it was "Trans Danubian/Indian Pacific vasút". Based on your comments the clear favourite was: Weekends away in Vombathely.

I also like the idea of Flat white tejbegriz. Flat white is an Australian invention whose global popularity astounds me. I remember my parents opting for a 'Flat White' at some suburban bevasarlokozpont cafe in the '90s, and now it's served in overpriced hipster cafes everywhere. And it's not particularly special and distinctive, but why not! 

I love how this H20 x Mezga Csalad reboot worked out. Also, I was really surprised that the H20 show was so popular in Hungary (everywhere really). There are lots of Australian kids' series like that which air at like 4pm on a weekday, and when you're a kid you like them but you don't think much about them. You certainly don't expect people around the world to have a special connection to them.

 

I love the narrative of the mermaids attacking Geza at the beach. The sound of 'OH NAUR" is from a famous Tik Tok of someone exaggerating the Australian way of saying "Oh no".

The first segment is all about 'mate'. It's charming when foreigners use 'mate' but they tend to overuse it  when in reality you're meant to slip it in there to punctuate a sentence, or maybe say 'mate' instead of an understated way in place of 'friend'. But there are so many exceptions that it's dangerous territory that one. 

Wow how "Kecske, mate!" took off! I especially love the couple of people from Kecskemet who wrote to me about it.    

In the part where I outline how the intonation of mate changes the sentence, i did indeed test this on the locals and they were surprised to realise how powerful it is for modifying the meaning. So you're in safe hands. The song in the background was Mit Sem Erdekel by Carson Coma, and the voice was Ili of course. 

Then was the joke that I got confused between mate and Máté, with an obvious reference to Csák Máté. This is a joke based in reality as my phone always autocorrects mate as 'Máté'. Honestly, I can't help but smile when I see the name Máté.

The latest guest star got a rousing reaction from everyone! This is an Australian sea lion. I took the footage at Taronga Zoo and can't believe how it ran over to me. I was going to call him Bodri at first but then I was informed that's just for curly-haired dogs. Is that true??

For context, we talk about some ways not to use mate. (there's no such thing as mateball if that wasn't known)

Now in the next segment we start with a parody of influencers promoting a product they probably don't care about, but at the same time I also wanted to share my gratitude for all the cool comments on the previous video. It's also the chance to bring up Elk*rtuk.

When i first saw the word 'elk*rtuk', it took me a hot minute to figure out what the word was because of its styling and because I'm an angel as pure as the driven snow. So I wanted to make a joke that it's called Elk Star Retweet UK (plus i would watch such a loopy-sounding movie). Then instead I give up an instead enter everyone in the draw to win tickets to El Nacho Libre instead. This is a movie from the early 2000s with Jack Black. It's actually called Nacho Libre, but oops.

I wanted to make some kind of joke that it's "the #1 movie Elk*rtuk" and put up their IMDB score of 1.0 out of 10." but it wasn't working. Even though it should be clear that I'm ridiculing Elk*rtuk, I am waiting for that commenter to scold me for promoting blatant propaganda. There's always one and you just never know how to respond. But either way, time to learn about farm calming. I think this is an expression that says a lot in a few words.

We give the example of:

- Hallottad, hogy bezárják az Euro Centert?

- Calm your farm, there’s always Duna Plaza.

Eurocentre is a shopping centre in Budapest's third district, and when I worked briefly in Budapest I would go there all the time to Fornetti, Spar and Fozelek Falo. So of course my heart aches for its demise.

Duna Plaza looks really strange, and my main memory of it is struggling in its blocky carpark. 

Then I wanted to give the example using the topic of Hunglish. Every eight weeks or something it happens on Twitter that someone comments on how Hunglish is a burden on humanity. Then a bit of a online rabble breaks out before it simmers down and the world keeps turning. I'd be curious what your view of Hunglish is. In my dealings with it, it's usually used in a playful context with the speaker being fully conscious that they're using it. But you'd know better than me, I speak Hungralian after all and sometimes those commenters may need to calm their farms. 

Calm your farm is a suitable sentence to practice your sing-song English long vowels. As i said in the video, I have trouble not using diphthongs and long vowels in Hungarian, it takes conscious effort to clip them but even slightly improved usage of these vowels will make English sound more natural. Otherwise you risk sounding like a Szijjarto 6000.

His English is obviously very good but he just has quite a robotic delivery, which was a great chance to mash up him speaking with the song Intergalactic by the Beastie Boys.

When I was filming that part of the video there was a gentleman who walked behind me (it's at the end of the video). I can only imagine what he thought of me filming that video there but he seemed like a good sport and a top-notch bloke. 

Now lastly, in the third segment we are talking about Australian upwards intonation .And we start by talking about how hardcore Hungarians are because your mice feed off human tears (nem itatja az egereket) and your ice creams lick back (a fagyi visszanyal).

Then it's time to bring up that Hungarian question intonation where you emphasise the second-last syllable. I had to practice this intonation but it's a lot of fun when you get the hang of it. I love the little rollercoaster graph at the end. Oh before I forget, at the title card for this video the footage of the rollercoaster is from Final Destination 3. 

When talking about the Australian upwards intonation, I feel like I'm giving away all my secrets. I use it all the time naturally when speaking to you all in Hungarian so I probably need to work on it. But if you want to make fun of me, I definitely recommend using it. 

Fun fact: Here I'm reading Nok Lapja Cafe, and this is actually the edition that I was in! Good reading. I put quite a few Australianisms in the subtitles for that section if interested. Honestly the upwards intonation can be a little bit annoying so it should be used in small doses! And I'd say it's advance so have fun with it before taking it out into the field.

At the beginning of this little conversation I say Azt a fuzfan futyulo rezangyalat, which I also said in Nyelvlecke #20. Several people have brought this one up to me! I didn't expect that to gain traction. 

And then we conclude the video! You're all good Aussie blighters and I couldn't be prouder of you all.

I hope you enjoy this vid. January videos hit different because there's a sense of newness and frivolity. Last year's January video was the mango tutorial, which is just a frothy goofy video with good vibes. 

Hope you're looking forward to the year ahead. No matter what I'll certainly be deepening my understanding of Hungarian language and culture, and I imagine that includes pushing out some vids along the way :)

Rating Hungarian Expressions - references and commentary

Hi everyone, welcome to another way too long blog post on the latest video for fellow mega geeks. I'll go through some of the references because why not. Again, i don't expect you to read all this but you might scan it.

First we see the opener of Dinnyefold, which is a play on Disneyworld. They sound really similar to me plus if you "ugy nezel ki, mint akinek nem jutott dinnyefold" it really evokes images of missing out on the most melon-iest place on Earth. So this felt like a no-brainer to me.

Sydney has been in lockdown for several weeks now, which has made life pretty dull lately. It does make me happy to see people enjoying summer holidays over in Europe but oh well at least I had time on my hands to make this vid. I said "Remelem it's hot enough for ya", which is a call back to one of my first videos. I'm surprised how many people bring that one up to me to this day! 

So today we're gonna keep it cooooool, and we play the Balatoni Laz song slowed down. The idea of slowing down a peppy song with buoyant lyrics to force fit it into chill or sombre mood (as I did at the end of the video) is the kind of conceptual misalignment I live for. For example, think of James Charles doing a soft acoustic version of Nicki Minaj's song, Chun Li (which is more akin to a battle cry than Tuesday mid-morning at the Central Perk).

Speaking of James Charles we move into my Beauty Guru intro. This was satire of a trend in the Beauty Guru community to use these stiff slightly Burtonesque animations of themselves in their intros. I don't know why they did this, and they ALL did the almost exact same style of intro.

And we move into outlining what this video will be about. You really all are a bit spesh because you've got so many interesting cultural and linguistic gems to tell me about. For example, harom emberes palinka is just amazing. That same person told me about "Squatting" palinka as well, which is where you have to squat below your fence lest your neighbour spies you and invites you in for obligatory palinka which is sadly poor quality. Maybe I'll mention that one later. I also chucked up a quick image of Fosters beer before moving on. I really don't like it haha, yet they've managed to become the most famous Australian beer worldwide.

I was really struck by Domino Day. When I heard the concept of a game show about dominos I struggled to imagine how that could be entertaining, but it's actually quite an elaborate and dramatic show! (At least the one episode I watched). They used such creative structures and wow it's high pressure as people's dreams fall down like.... things that fall down a lot (can't think of anything).

On TikTok at the time of writing this, it's been popular to say "NAUR" which is no in an Australian accent. It comes from a Tik Tok of some girls parodying the Australian TV show H20, so I wanted to say something like them so landed on "a FESZKOOAR". About 7 people will get this joke (soulmates)

Then we get to the real premise of this video, which is to share some cool expressions you've told me about. I say that the quality is "*mwah* Isten szintu" with a chef's kiss. On the screen I put up an Ethnicity Estimate from Ancestry.com, which shows that I'm 5% Southern European. This is obviously poking fun at people who have minor percentages of certain ethnicities then carry on like that significantly embodies their character. (It may! Not a criticism) 

Now I let you in on some top-secret intel on how I store the knowledge of all these expressions. I heard about Neptun because someone who watched my videos sent me screenshots of it asking me to make fun of them haha. Fortunately the experience of an outdated university digital platform is universal so I wanted to make it a really messy outdated UI. 

What do we think of the User Experience of my goodies database? You may not know that I used to be UX designer, so this was a lot of fun to think of the worst possible experience for how you might add data to a database... by navigating fragile and poorly organised menus. Shout out to 'Meat Street', I saw it's called "Meet Street" in the real Neptun.

 

In reality I just keep a running Notes file where I put things that intrigue me. So we're going to go through the 'ominozus lista' to rate some of the expressions and tell stories about them. This gentleman who pops up on the screen is from a Japanese series called Death Note about a boy who finds a book, where if he ever writes someone's name in it then they die. My list isn't ominozus in that way.. or is it? We'll see make sure to subscribe. 

So let's catch up. We'll 'crack open some cold ones', which is slang to typically means 'have beer'. But I guess pickles can classify as 'cold ones' as well. This is from a Soproni reklam, I think from the Hetkoznapi szuperkepessegek series. They're pretty funny! I learned a lot.

But I do have to make it clear that I'm a dofi jampec, so please keep me in check and tell me which expressions I should actually start using so I stay a fly buckeroo.

Es a lecso? Csapjunk bele. The funny thing about this video is that despite its name I actually only rate five expressions. But in reality, I used a lot of expressions throughout the video. Anyone new to my videos will probably get really upset by that but I'm not a 'language teacher' youtuber, I prefer to just tell you stories about things I hear, thought and felt in my Hungarian adventures. It's more like a weird vlog at the end of the day. Anyway, let's get into that lecso before it gets cold.

So first section starts, and I mention that I've done a few media interviews in the last few weeks. I find it bizarre that media wants to talk to me. I don't know why there was this sudden influx within the space of a few weeks. It's hard for me to do interviews because well.. I think I'm really boring, but to be honest I don't ever expect this kind of attention so I may as well try it out while they care a smidgeon. It's a cool memento and some of you guys have commented that it's fun to see me pop up randomly. 

So weird! 

It's not easy being A-list! I swear that text message is real.

So this story is true that an interviewer asked me the below question. They were really cute, they actually wrote a whole bunch of questions using novel expressions. I didn't know any of them haha so they had to explain each one to me but it was pretty funny.  

As a small jab, I used the music from the Wii Sports theme when I did the news show transition animation. It's amazing how much these opening credits to news programs are more akin to superhero movies these days, so wanted to poke fun by just using full blown video game music. (this is not unique to Hungary and isn't a recent phenomenon, also the journalist in question wasn't part of a TV production it's just a general comment :)) 

After complimenting the expression, I said 'how good is that' and I made fun of my own pronunciation here which contained dipthongs all over the place. I don't think you use dipthongs in Hungarian (kettoshangzok) but it's part of English and I have to train myself not to use them. Vice-versa if you want to take your English pronunciation to the next level get into dipthongs. This font originates from Word Art in the 90s (remember that little paperclip dude?)

As per the journalist's question, we have a brief aside where we talk about the ramaty state of my 'hate comments'. Now beyond the sarcasm, there is truth here any language learner can appreciate. It's not always immediately obvious when someone compliments you using casual language. So it's happened to me multiple times where I didn't know how to react when I first heard things like 'ezen beszartam', 'ez a mukso nem piskoka', 'sirok' etc. Especially the first one.

But back to Kukutyin. I truly find these quaint expressions so interesting because it's cool to imagine the person who would say it, such as the TV Maci when they interrupt his Esti Mese. This was a prime opportunity to poke fun at that emoji campaign. Also the music that plays in the background is theme from The Voice because well.. it's a little hard to take it seriously.

I always have my favourite parts in the videos, and this is one of them. After rating the expression, I turn to the camera and ask "where do YOU like to hull oats". I'm of course parodying YouTubers who force fit requests for engagement with shallow questions, plus I love the imagery of people who have a preferred place to hull oats genuinely sharing their advice.  

On to the next expression and story! 

So as I said, I don't have a lot of chances to practise Hungarian in my daily life. I think as an adult it's really hard to keep up languages when you're working and grappling with life's responsibilities, and they don't fit in naturally within your life (e.g. if you use that language for work or in the home). So social media stalking has been a great way to see how people talk. I say stalking, but I mean is I pay attention when reading public tweets or the posts of mutuals (I'm not out here deep diving through strangers' pages!)  

I used the music from Poirot and this footage from Selena Gomez's music video for Round and Round, which takes place in Budapest. I've never actually had Hortobagy Palacsinta but it looks really intense, and then I hear they deep fry it in some regions. Wowza

But social media is where I saw 'boldog-boldogtalan'. Now imagine my shock when I came across that one. As I said "az angol gyongytyuk agyam ezt full szo szerint ertelmezte". The images on the left were from an old old meme of 'woman laughing at salad', so I used one of those pictures and then woman looking concerned at her salad.

Before someone told me that it just means 'absolutely everybody'. Then I played Absolutely Everybody by Vanessa Amorosi (who is Australian), specifically when she performed it at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Now you have to understand that this was a bit of an anthem for the Olympic Games here and so that song... was... everywhere... in that year. Plus how fitting that as of writing this the Tokyo Olympic Games are gearing up for their closing ceremony.  

Now here's a niche reference for you. I said that boldog-boldogtalan is a really appropriate way to describe absolutely everybody because the phrase is mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive (MECE). This is notably management consultant jargon (my field lol), and it's a model used to understand the breadth of a problem. It's why over this slide I played the cheesiest song you've ever heard. It's a corporate theme song from Ernst and Young, made in the 90s in America I think (link). They're not exactly the professional services firm who is famous for using this type of model but that song is just... wow. 

So then I can't help but wonder, why can't we use this structure with other adjectives because they would also be equally MECE. 

Then we start our mission to identify an English equivalent. Google Translate is no help. 

So in sharing an English / Australian equivalent I wanted to give a little more context. I see so many videos on Australian slang and honestly 85% is said by no one, or said as kind of an old-man joke. It'd honestly just be really awkward if someone said that, so I put together is Ausztral-o-meter so we can talk about what any English speaker would say vs. things that are more UK/AU vs. things that are AU but a little bit hokey.

Also, I used this background because it's so weird. Why is this person sitting there????

The second variation is 'Commonwealth Vibes' and I wrote 'use in Gold Coast, Delhi, Kingston etc' those are places where the Commonwealth Games has taken place (like Olympic Games but for Commonwealth countries). And quite frankly, you could probably say it to English speakers in all those places (you could actually say 'everyone and their mom was there' in the US too). Also, some people say 'everyone and their dog was there'.

When the ausztral-o-meter was going out of control it plays a sped up version of The Veronicas - 4Ever (they're Australian) and it says Big Kev (like Big Kevin). 

Big Kev was some guy in ads on Australian TV who had a slogan saying "I'm excited!" 

He also looks like someone who might say 'It was chockers" which actually is something people might say (to mean it was full /it was crowded). 

As part of my example sentence, I say "Aw the line a Szepjuhaszne Bufe was so long.. it was chockers". I simply scanned Google Maps for cool place names and that one struck my eye. Then I say "minden Tomi, Ricsi es Huba ott volt' which is referring back to where I just said "every Tom, Dick and Harry was there. Not everyone knows that Dick is a nickname for Richard. I'm not sure you have a version of Harry in Hungarian?

We're summing up the glory of boldog-boldogtalan, and I say it has a beautiful nursery rhyme cadence, a management consultant's logic and let's face it, a social commentary. I put up this work by Nietzsche 'Jenseits von Gut und Bose" which in English is "Beyond Good and Evil" and make it become "Beyond Boldog and Boldogtalan". I believe the Hungarian title is Túl az erkölcs világán so it wouldn't have worked. 

We give the expression an A rating, and I recommend you "use it once per day" before playing some superfast disclaimers from a Hungarian vitamin ad. But I love this footage of the wallaby, it just perfectly fit that kind of stock image footage they use in pharma ads of people living their carefree lives after taking the medicine in question.

Next up we're going to Dinnyefold at last.

For a while I've wanted to make a Halloween-style video where I commission some Hungarian artists to create a new Hungarian monster or something. But I didn't want to wait to do that kind of concept so instead I engaged the artist Micsodsag to create some artistic interpretations for us for this video. I kept the brief really simple and let Micsodasag follow their whim. You can see why this one looks so sorrowful :( Look how much he likes dinnye. I love the melon-shaped heart breaking in the back. 

I eventually say 'De dinnye vagy' which has also been something people have recalled from earlier videos. The goofiest part of the video is when I see his face and try to recall that expression "Buval... something". For those who don't know the expression is 'Buval b***ott". The voices cautioning me in the background while I'm trying to recall the full expression come from a Tik Tok sound, but "Buval.. buval... bossanova?" 

 

I made up that the track is called Like a Bossa Nova from the hit album Best of Elevators. Before remembering the expression is of course... "Buval kozos megegyezessel parkapcsalotba lepett" and the theme from The Care Bears plays because we're just the most wholesome wubbly channel here (aside from insinuating beszarni fetish 4 minutes earlier). 

As for English, this time our ipad user was watching an inspirational speech by Lolo but instead decided to whip out the Ausztral-o-meter. Hmmmm where are their priorities.

The next fabulous illustration is Kerulgeti, mint macska a forro kasat. It's a good one.

I mention that it's a cool expression because it's like an interpretive modern dance. I show footage of iconic Australian series Ja'mie Private School girl where there's famous scene where she does an interpretive dance (link). The song is Arva Fiu.

The English equivalent is Beat Around The Bush, which is something I bet you never do. Before Mae West interjects with "Whaddya talking about I beat around the bush all the time, auuuuuu". If you didn't know this is the drag queen Alaska from Drag Race imitating Mae West. Mae West was an actress back when movies were black and white who was always very suggestive. 

I absolutely love how Micsodasag interpreted this next one. I wonder if anyone will get it before it's revealed. That'd be impressive.

It's true what I said that at first I thought 'suszter' was some kind of Hunglish construction, because I knew the word cipesz. So I thought it was like 'shoe' + profession suffix (e.g. gangSZTER) in a similar vein to INFLUENCE + SZER. I then say that I like this expression because I think Hungarians can turn on an old-world charm to communicate with grace. I immediately make a joke with that gentleman punching a sign but it's true that Hungarians can have a lot of elegance to get their message across. 

Anyway, that essentially concludes the video except for real footage of you imploring Kacagojan(cs)i to sing, with the song János legyen fenn a János hegyen by Fekete Pál.

It's true what I said, I thought I was going to say about 20 things but I only really got through five in proper detail. I just think it's more interesting to let you in on how I come across expressions and what they trigger, as opposed to listing a bunch of things that you could look up in Google. But you're a döfi jampec so you already knew this

Thanks so much if you read this. Not many people will watch this video because everyone's on holiday and that's okay. It just matters to me that you watched it and hopefully found it at least a little bit interesting :) 

Alright I better go attend to some serious business.

seee yaaa, 

Tom