and welcome back to English with Lucy.
Today, I'm going to teach you about my favourite topic
to teach my students, British slang.
because in this lesson I'm going to show you
some of the amazing features and exercises
that we use in one of our challenges,
and if you haven't heard about it before
and you're interested in learning slang
and learning to speak like a real Brit,
Before we start the lesson, I'll quickly explain it.
This is a 21-day language challenge.
Once you sign up for the challenge
you get one lesson a day for 21-days.
You follow a story via a series
of WhatsApp voice and text messages
between a girl who's just moved to London
and her best friend back home,
between nine and 15 pieces of slang
and do audio and vocabulary comprehension exercises.
gap-fills, multiple-choice questions, loads.
Every day, you get to participate
You get to ask my teachers questions,
and practise using your newly learnt slang.
So many of my students have already
taken part in the challenge and they absolutely loved it,
look at their amazing feedback.
This was the most awesome group of students.
If this challenge sounds up your street,
and that's slang for something you would like,
I'm running a special discount on it at the moment.
To find out more, click on the link in the description box,
the special offer is there and it won't last for long.
Also, don't forget to download
the free pdf for today's lesson,
it's got all of the slang we'll cover today
If you'd like that, just click on the PDF link
you enter your name and your email address.
You sign up to my mailing list
and it will arrive directly in your inbox.
After that, you will automatically receive
all of my free PDFs and my news, updates and offers.
Right, let's get started with this slang lesson.
Okay, so when do we usually use slang?
Well, very commonly when we're using
and you just got a text message from me,
Take a look at these messages.
Do you understand what's happened?
Well, I've said, "my boss has just thrown a wobbly."
To throw a wobbly, what does that mean?
Does it mean A, my boss has just thrown
my boss has become angry and shouted at me?
To throw a wobbly is to become very angry
or very upset, very emotional.
You've asked me if I'm yakking too much.
Is that anything to do with big brown cows?
We can have a type of cow called a yak.
and you were asking if I was talking or chatting too much.
We can say we are yakking or yakking away.
We can also say yapping, as well.
Ah, I've sent you an audio message,
it is my favourite form of communication.
there's too much pressure to instantly
come up with something good to say.
I like to think about it and to rerecord it
and sometimes listen back to it
and laugh at my own messages and jokes.
and I'll warn you when I'm using lots of slang
and talking with my friends via voice notes, I talk fast.
I finished all the bits and bobs that I had to do today
so I was just faffing around in the break room.
"Lucy, I've told you umpteen times how busy we are.
Why are you hanging around in here?"
but he told me that if I didn't crack on immediately,
Did you understand a hundred percent?
Don't worry, if not, that was really quick.
That was me speaking in the way I do
Let's take a look at the slang in that audio message though.
The first phrase that you might not know is bits and bobs.
I said, I finished all the bits and bobs
I finished all the bits and bobs I had to do today.
It's B , its and bobs means an assortment
of small things or small tasks.
It can be literal, as in everyone has a drawer
full of bits and bobs in their kitchen.
I actually have two of those drawers,
Alternatively, it can be used to talk about
tasks to do, pieces of information and much more.
For example, I've just got to finish a few bits and bobs
The beautiful thing about bits and bobs
so you don't need to tell someone exactly what you are doing
or exactly what you have in that
horribly messy drawer in your kitchen.
so I was just faffing around in the break room.
So, to faff or to faff around or to faff about
is an amazing piece of British slang
Okay, is it A, to make a cup of tea?
Or C, to do nothing important or useful?
It means to spend your time doing something
that isn't useful often instead
of doing something more important.
An example, Lucy, stop faffing around
and go and finish your homework.
We can also use faff as a noun,
and in this case it means something
and often not well-organized and causes problems.
For example, finding a place to park
This is really British and it's also very true,
never drive if you come to London.
Next was the word umpteen, in this sentence,
Do you think umpteen is a real number?
If you chose B, you'd be correct.
Umpteen means very many or a lot.
he'd told me something many times.
You'll often see umpteen followed by the word times,
but you can use it with any word really.
I gave him umpteen chances to apologise
or Colleen Hoover has written umpteen best-selling books.
Phrase number four was wind-up, in this sentence,
If you guessed A, you'd be right.
A wind-up is a joke that is supposed
It can be a noun, a wind-up, or a phrasal verb, to wind-up.
Ben's been winding me up all day.
and if you've taken the Slang Challenge
you will know what this one means,
click on the link in the description box,
there's a special offer going on.
Are you slammed in this sentence?
Which one of these sentences makes sense?
I'm absolutely slammed at work,
so I'm going to go home early.
Or I'm absolutely slammed at work,
so I'm going to have to stay late tonight.
It's B.
Sentence B makes sense because slammed means very busy.
Sorry, I haven't replied to you.
I've been absolutely slammed at work.
Next, we had the word jiffy, in this sentence,
Is it a long time or a short time?
It would be very rude to tell my boss
I was going to be out in a long time.
wait there, and I'll be back in a jiffy.
Finally, we had the phrasal verb, to crack on.
My boss told me to crack on immediately
I'm going to tell you what this one means
so we can crack on with the video very quickly.
To crack on means to start or continue to do something,
especially with lots of energy.
Okay, let's crack on and see what the response is.
Okay, here's the response, have a read.
Do you understand all of that?
Don't worry, I'm here to help.
There are three slang words that I want to pick out.
or to nosh-on, if it's a verb.
'Mare, here, is short for a longer word
that means a very bad experience.
Can you guess what the long form is?
Nightmare, shortened down to 'mare.
Next, they say that they're in their jimjams.
can you guess what they're wearing?
This is quite a childish slang phrase.
And finally, she said she was noshing on some chocolate.
So what is she doing to the chocolate?
To nosh means to eat, while the noun nosh means food.
Meanwhile, I'm over here in my pyjamas
I bet you miss being a student.
Yes, I do miss being a student sometimes.
Okay, that's enough slang for today.
but you want to do it with lots of interactive activities,
an interactive private community
where you can ask questions to my teachers,
beautiful vocabulary banks where you can click on the word,
And you want to have lifetime access to the content,
and a 30-day money back guarantee.
We're running a special offer,
click on the link in the description box
and join my 21-day British Slang Challenge.
Also, don't forget to download the PDF for today's lesson.
Click on the link in the description box.
You sign up to my mailing list
and it'll come straight to you.
We've got a quiz there as well
so you can test your understanding.
Don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media.
I've got my Instagram, I've got my Facebook,
I've got my website, englishwithlucy.com,
where I have a fantastic interactive pronunciation tool.
You can click on phonemes and hear me pronounce them
and hear me pronouncing words that contain the phonemes.
You can also check out all of my English courses,
whether you want to focus on something specific
like slang, vocabulary, business English
or you want to nail one of the English levels
like B1 or B2, it's all there on my website.