English Slang / Idioms: Hella Hecka

Hello, everybody. My name is Esther. 

And in this video, we're going to talk about  a slang word that comes from California. 

That's where I'm from. This slang word is actually  

from Northern California, in areas like San Francisco,  

San Jose, and Oakland. And this word is the slang word ‘hella’. 

And it actually has two different meanings. So let's look at how it's  

used in some sentences, okay. So here's the first example sentence. 

“This room is ‘hella’ hot.” hmm… 

How is ‘hella’ used? It's used to mean the  

word ‘really’ or ‘very’, right? “This room is very hot.” or  

“This room is really hot.” In that case, we can say,  

“This room is hella hot.” mm-hmm so that's the first meaning. 

Let's move on to the second meaning. And here's another example sentence. 

“There's hella food at home.” hmm That doesn't match the word ‘really’, right? 

Let's look. There's really food at home. 

It doesn't make sense actually. In the second sentence,  

‘hella’ is used to mean there's ‘a lot  of’ or there's ‘many’ things, right? 

So in this case, instead of saying, “There's a lot of food at home,” 

we can say, “There's hella food at home.” So hurry and go home and eat some of that food. 

Now under ‘hella’, I've written the word ‘hecka’. And that's because some people feel  

uncomfortable using the word ‘hella’, right? Because ‘hella’ has the word ‘hell’, right? 

And ‘hell’ can sometimes be used to express an  emotion that's negative or very strong, right? 

And in that case, people use ‘heck’, right? So again, instead of ‘hella’ some people say  

‘hecka’. mm-hmm 

So we can say, “There's hecka food at home.” Again, it means the same thing - there's  

a lot of food at home. “There's hecka food at home.” 

But if you don't want to use  ‘hella’, you can use this one. 

And in the same way you can use ‘hecka’ to  substitute ‘hella’ in the first sentence as well. 

“This room is hecka hot.” Right? “This room is hecka hot.” 

It's very hot in here but I  don't want to say ‘hella’. 

But remember, again, this slang word ‘hella’ and  ‘hecka’ is actually from Northern California, 

so you might not hear it or people  might not understand what you mean 

if you use it in other places  such as New York or the UK. 

So keep that in mind. Okay so let's look at a couple examples sentences. 

“This pizza is hella good.” “This pizza is hella good.” 

“You look hella pretty.” “You look hella pretty.” 

“Your hair is hecka long.” “Your hair is hecka long.” 

“There's hecka people at this concert.” “There's hecka people at this concert.” 

Now, remember, this is the sentence where you  would use ‘hecka’ to mean ‘a lot of’, right? 

So, again, “There's hecka people at this concert.” 

“I have hella things to do.” “I have hella things to do.” 

Okay, so those are the ways that we can use  ‘hella’ or ‘hecka’ in our everyday speech. 

But I want to remind you guys, one more time, 

this slang is used mostly in Northern California. Now, for those of you who like  

and enjoy hip-hop music. Some hip-hop artists from that area,  

such as e-40, and the Federation,  use the slang word in their music. 

They use ‘hella’ mostly. So next time you decide  

to listen to some of their music, I hope you guys can understand a  

little better what they're saying and what that word means okay. 

Well, thanks. See you guys next time.