How to Make Plans with Friends in English—Australian vs. American English

Hi, I'm Annemarie with Speak Confident English and welcome to this week's

Confident English lesson where I'm joined by Kelly. Kelly is going to chat

with me today about making plans with friends in English and we're going to

compare Australian English and American English but before we get into that, for

those of you who have not joined me for Fluency School this year or if you're

not in one of my courses then Kelly might be new to you but she is not new

to Speak Confident English. She actually joined us back in March and Kelly works

with me in Fluency School and in the Advanced Conversation course. So Kelly

before we start talking about how we both make plans with friends in English

and compare your Australian English and my American English will you give us a

quick overview of who you are. Absolutely, yeah. Well I'm, um, as well as

being a language teacher I'm a passionate language learner, so I spent a

long time learning Chinese and I'm learning Italian at the moment. And I

lived in China for a long time where I taught English and lived there

about nine years altogether. So I live back in Australia now and I've been

teaching in the university, teaching English there and I'm so happy to be

part of Speak Confident English. I've met so many lovely students so far I

look forward to meeting many more. Absolutely, well it's been super fun to

have you and I love that our students get to experience these two sides of

English, so today we thought it would be fun to share with our Confident English

Community some of the differences between Australian and American English.

So we're going to focus on three things today: we're going to talk about the

language that Kelly and I use for making plans and then what we say when we want

to agree to a plan, when something sounds good to us, or what we say when we're too

tired or too busy or we just can't do something. So those are our three focus

areas—if you enjoy this lesson, if you find this one helpful and you like this

kind of interaction with Kelly and I and you want to see more lessons about

Australian versus American English, be sure to let me know. The best way that

you can do that is to give this a thumbs up on YouTube, share it on Facebook or

comment at the end of the lesson below the video. Those are three perfect ways

to let me know that you enjoyed this lesson and found it useful. So Kelly

let's dive in and let's talk about what we both say if we're going to try to

make some plans with friends for the weekend or maybe next month, so my first

question is for you how do you prefer to do it do you use text email phone calls

what do you do I am a texter yeah I'm notorious for texting but also

now I use voice messages so Whatsapp and things like that because I feel like

with voice messages I can say everything that I want to say I can have

my you know my tone is clear I sound friendly there's no misunderstanding and

people can listen to it whenever they're free rather than calling them I feel

like I call someone they might be busy I might be interrupting them yeah what

about you do you normally call or text? Yeah I am definitely a texter I haven't

gotten on the Whatsapp train yet... I'm not... I know it exists I know people love

it I just haven't done it I've never done a voice message or voice whatever

you call it but that's me everyday yeah I don't do I text all the time and I

actually don't love phone calls so I don't call people very often only if I

have to so so if you're texting or doing a whatsapp voice message what do you say

when you want to make friends or with make plans with a friend? So normally this is

usually the case for me I'll say something like it's been ages because

you know I'm usually so busy that I don't see people so it's been ages I'd

love to catch up are you free this week anytime this week or this weekend okay

so I heard you use the phrasal verb catch up I'd love to catch up which I

would use as well what does that mean so catch up really does mean you want to

hang out with someone which is another phrasal verb but that you want to spend

time with someone and in fact I don't know if you say this in America as well but

let me say a catch up—we are overdue for a catch up

as well. Do you say that? Maybe I'm not sure, it's not something I would say but

perhaps (it might be one of the Aussie ones). No I don't know that I've heard it but

it doesn't sound that strange to me. If someone said it I would definitely

understand what they meant but that's interesting it's I think if I were

texting someone the first thing I would say is I would kind of test the waters

as we would say and I would just check in to see if they're actually free so

I'd probably say something like: "Hey what are you up to this weekend?" just to find

out if they've already got plans or not before I even suggest the idea that we

should do something I don't know do you do you use anything like that? Yeah I

think so I like the way you explain "test the waters" because you really want

to see where where do we stand for this weekend but sometimes when I receive a

message like that I'm not sure if the person is just seeing what my plans are

just or if they actually then want to make a plan with me so sometimes I'm

confused if I get a text like... if you send me a text like that... does she want to catch up or does she

just want me to tell her all the things I'm doing? So let's say that someone

responds and you've asked them to catch up or they say oh I'm totally free this

weekend what would be your next step, what would you say? I'm not very good at

making decisions about what to do with them so I would put the ball in their

court and say okay great what what do you want to do? What should we do? Should we

do dinner or what are you up for? Yeah what are you up for interesting okay and

I heard you say I put the ball in their court, so that's a great idiom what does

that mean? Yeah so just like in the game of tennis when someone has the ball they

have a control, so because I'm terrible at making decisions about plans I will

give them the control and put the ball in their court, so they can decide what

we will do and tell me. What about you, are you good at suggesting what you would like to do?

No I'm I'm kind of the same, I'm a little bit indecisive so I'll say

something vague like let's get, let's get coffee or let's do dinner this weekend

if you're free or it might be something really vague like well let's make some

plans and then it's kind of pushing it back on them which isn't fair but I push

it back on them to like get some ideas of what we can do or organize something

so... so let's say that you've got a plan made you're both excited about getting

together, you're ready to catch up, you're both free for the weekend, maybe both

have Saturday afternoon free and you want to say yes let's do this—what would

you say? How do you agree to a plan? Sounds good that's my go-to. Sounds good.

Sounds good. Great, let's do it. If something is usually if there's

something that's a little unusual or different maybe we've made plans that we

wouldn't normally do I would say "I'm game." Do you have that expression?

Yeah yeah if for me to say that it would have to be something quite strange like

sky-diving or something, something really out there. Probably most plans to me are yeah fine

like any I'm willing to try any kind of food or go anywhere but yeah I'm game or

I'm up for that. Yeah I'm probably more likely say "I'm

up for that, I'm into that." Yeah that's funny because I was just thinking as you

were talking about the two other things I would say in English that sound total

like total opposites but they mean the same—I'm up for that

or yeah I'm down. So we're using total opposite words but they both mean yes,

that sounds good. Yes I would like to do that. Yes let's plan for it. So I'm up for

that, I'm down, I'm game or sounds good.. I'm down, in fact, in Australia we

don't use that so much yeah it sounds quite American and I probably wouldn't

usually say that yeah I would more likely say I'm up for that. If someone

said I'm down I would get it but I think they're very young or they're American... my age

group, we probably wouldn't say it that way.

Right, okay, there's one more that just came to mind and I don't know if you

use the same (we use a lot of different prepositions)— I'm in. Especially if I, if

I'm organizing something with a lot of people or my

friend is organizing a big dinner and there's a lot of people in the text

message or a lot of people on the email list, if I want to join, if I want to be

available for that event then I would say: Yeah, I'm in. Do you have that? Yeah and

I would say also: count me in. Yeah definitely we would use the same. Alright

so, so far I think we have a lot of overlap which is surprising to me

actually. What about if you're too tired, too busy, or you have something else

scheduled during that time? What would you say? Yeah this is where I think we've

got a few Australian sayings that maybe you don't have. Like we would say oh I'm

flat chat which means I'm flat out I'm busy.

Do you say flat out and or flat chat... no what did you say? I'm flat chat? I'm flat out, I'm too

busy... I'm very busy. Do you also say I'm flat out or is that

also an Australian one? Uh I think that's probably more Australian if I heard I'm

flat out I would understand it but if I heard I'm flat chat, I would have no idea

what that meant, so I'm glad you told me. Um, I would say I'm totally worn out if I'm tired, I'm worn

out or what else? I'm exhausted, I guess it's kind of boring, it's not

a slang word or anything but yeah I'm worn out or I'm wrecked.

I'm totally wrecked so if I said I'm totally wrecked this weekend it would be

1. I'm probably have too much work to do 2. I have too many plans there's no way

I could meet them and 3. I'm maybe a little bit tired as well—I'm wrecked. What about

you? Anything else other than I'm flat chat? Flat chat really does mean that means you're

really busy, so if you say I'm flat chat or this weekend is chokers. This is

chokers which means it's really full, something really full, you've filled it all up.

We definitely don't have that in American English. So again we could say

this weekend is wrecked. Oh, wrecked means it's full? It could. It could just mean a lot

of things like this weekend is just impossible possible for me, for whatever reason

either I've got too many things... I'm trying to think maybe, more formally, I

guess if I were talking to a colleague I might say: my plate is full. That's really not

quite something I would use with friends really. Oh, wouldn't you? Oh gosh I would say

with friends I'd say I've got a lot on my plate at the moment.

So can we do it next weekend? Yeah I've got too much going on, that's what I

would probably say. So okay so those are if you're too busy, you're tired, what if

you just don't want to or you have something else planned, what would you

say? I would pretend that I was busy. What would you say? I would probably say something really

general like this weekend just doesn't work for me, let's try for another week.

And then there's not a real commitment there, it's just yeah as you said

pretending that I'm too busy. Yeah there's also, there's a phrase I really

like: things are up in the air at the moment, which you know really means that

my plans are not really confirmed. You know there might be something going on

but I'm not sure, so you know oh you know things are a little bit up in the air

for this weekend, so can I get back to you? We can talk about it later.

Absolutely we have we have the same for sure. So Kelly now that we've got: 1. how you

and I both make plans with friends, 2. what we say when we want to agree or 3. what we

say when we want to tell someone were too tired, too busy, we're wrecked, we

can't make plans... I want to highlight four more things that you and I

discovered were big differences between Australian and American English before

we finish today's lesson. So let's highlight those four examples. The first

one deals with organising or making plans and getting it fixed so what would

you say? What was the example you had in Australian English? Yeah I would say

something like: it's in the diary. So you know, we've made the time, I've written it

in my diary. I was surprised when I said that to you, you said that wasn't what

you would say. I probably started laughing because for us, in American

a diary is where you write all your secret notes like when you were a teenager and

you've got your special journal and you write your thought, your love you know who you have a

crush on... so a diary from me is secret, it's all my secret ideas and thoughts but... I

promise that's not what I'm writing it in. It's not... But we would say something like: I've

got it down. So if it's confirmed, if it's in my calendar, on my calendar I'd say

I've got it down or it's it's on my calendar. It's noted down or something

like that, so that's what we would say as opposed to I'm writing... if I was writing

it my diary I'd be like: Dear diary, I'm so excited that I have plans with Kelly this week. It's very

very different. So another one that we noticed was if you were going to make plans with

someone at a specific time of day you have an abbreviation in Australian

English that I'd never heard before. We do and we use it a lot. So instead of

afternoon we say "arvo." So we would say, for example, for this afternoon we're

too lazy to say this afternoon, we say 'z'arvo. Z'arvo? So there's a /z/,

you cut off the /th/ in 'this.' So z'arvo? Yeah, z'arvo.

Wow. We run it together. If I were in Australia I would have no

idea what that meant. We don't shorten this afternoon at all...

But it's so long... Maybe another English person can check me out on that

but I don't think we have anything. So you would text the whole word 'afternoon?'

Would you write the whole word out in the text message? It's so long. You know

maybe in a text, if I wanted it to be really short, I would say "are you free in

the p.m.?" but that would be rare for me. I don't think that... yeah I've

seen it, maybe once or twice I've used it but it's not common for me. I would just say

"are you free in the afternoon?" Yeah it's funny though I even with my closest

friends, my sister, my husband I would still write afternoon. I won't... there's... I

don't have a real... I can't think of a shortened phrase so if

someone's watching this and you're an American I would love to know if you've

got something similar to 'arvo.' You can share it in the chat below. I'd love to know what it is. So

another fun one that you and I found was different was asking someone to reach

you by telephone. What would you say? Yeah we have a lovely

phrase: give us a bell. Give us a bell or give me either way give us... give

us a bell or give me a bell, which means call me. And for some reason we say us

even though I am a single person. So interesting. Yeah, American English

we would say give me a ring or give me a call. And most of the time, if it's just

for me, I would say give me a ring. I would only use 'us' if some other family

or couple were making plans with me and my husband or with me and someone else

and then I would say give us a give us a ring this weekend but only if it's

inclusive with my my whole family but if it's just me it's definitely give me a

ring. I think we have a habit in Australia of using us when it's just

yourself. Even if somebody had something that we wanted we might say: give us that

(which is rude) It's kind of really... yeah with family

members: give us that. I don't know why we do that. It's super interesting.

Very strange. I'll look it up after this. If I heard that, I would try to

figure out... to who? Which person because it is plural. I would have

no idea. That's fascinating. So the last one for today, for this

lesson, is making plans specifically to have a drink, a specific kind of drink. So

what would you say? So if I wanted somebody, for example, to come over maybe

and have a cup of tea, we would say: hey you want to come around for a cuppa?

A cuppa. So that's short for a cup of tea? Tea

always. It doesn't mean coffee but when you get to my house, if you want coffee

you can have coffee. I won't force you to have only tea but it really refers to

cup of tea... a cuppa. Okay so would you say that tea is more

common in Australian culture? Are people more likely to drink tea than coffee? I

think historically tea was more common but now coffee has far overtaken

anything, especially in Melbourne. Yeah. So you... but you would still say cuppa as in

a cup of tea and then once they came over you could switch it to coffee. Yeah

it's just kind of a very quaint Australian thing to say like: "pop over for a cuppa."

Pop over. So we don't have pop over in American English... well, I mean people use it but it's not, I

don't think it's typical American English to say pop over. If I hear that

I assume that they're using British or Australian English, it's really

the American English to say pop over. We would say: come on over. Come on over

for a cup of coffee and for us it's always... like it's sort of... for you always

a cup of tea and then you can switch to coffee if you want, we always assume it's

a cup of coffee and we don't have an abbreviation for it. Some people might

say some like come over for a cup but in it insinuates coffee but most the time:

Why don't you... why don't you come over for a cup of coffee this weekend? I've heard

cup of joe. Do people really say that ? Oh yeah, cup of joe. Definitely. Yeah and you go to coffee

shops and there's always... I mean there's coffee shops and the name of the

shop is "Cup of Joe" or they'll have some sign in the shop with cup of joe. I have no

idea honestly where that came from I should have done some research and

looked into that so but we definitely say that I'll have a cup of joe. Yeah.

Well Kelly thank you so much for doing this lesson with me today. It was super

fun and I'm excited for the whole Confident English community to get to

know you a little bit since you're a big part of Speak Confident English. So for

those of you watching, if you enjoyed this week, again, be sure to like it on

Facebook, share it on YouTube and Facebook, those are great ways to let me

know that you enjoyed this lesson. Kelly thank you and I look forward to seeing

you again very soon.