Slang

Would you help me with some outdated slang? Could you tell any funny stories about foreigners trying to sound native-like, and proving to be a little ridiculous? I must confess I'm a little worried myself about performing like that!

Clayton.Henderson wrote:

I once had an English teaching Brazilian trial student. He sounded like he was from the 1980's, was paying for my feedback and got very angry when confronted with the reality that he sounded like a 1980's surfer.

Too much dude and gnarly?  

Something like that, I can't remember for the life of me what he said but he sounded like comically retro dude.  

Clayton.Henderson wrote:

I once had an English teaching Brazilian trial student. He sounded like he was from the 1980's, was paying for my feedback and got very angry when confronted with the reality that he sounded like a 1980's surfer.

People speaking like 80's surfers take job from me!

People don't use dude anymore? It seems I've been living under a rock :D

But yeah, it can be very funny sometimes, I had a teenage student who was super into the 1990s MTV cartoon Daria (it's an amazing show by the way, fight me lol), and she constantly used slang from the show like "brain" (nerd) or groovy, and calling people "yuppies" and "trekkies". It was super fun.

Edit: to be honest though, I remember it being tough to get "mate" and excess swearing out of my own vocabulary after spending a lot of time with an Australian friend. :D

I still say yuppy and trekkie. Yuppies to me are new money republicans or conservatives who lead a certain lifestyle. I won't comment on the degeneracy of worshiping money on a language forum, though. Trekkies are just really hardcore devout Star-Trek fans. I can't see someone being a trekkie and a yuppy since the creator Mr. Roddenberry was a devout socialist.

Brain and groovy are not, however, in my lexicon.