Hella + Hecka Slang Words | Learn Meaning, Usage, and Grammar with Example English Sentences

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.”

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.”

“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.