Language differences

Today was a typical Sunday in late summer/early autumn. The cicadas were still singing, but in far fewer numbers. It was very warm and sunny—a lazy day.

In keeping with the laid-back tone, here are some observations on language differences I’ve noticed after nearly 11½ years in New Zealand:

• Say there’s a road crash and someone’s injured. The news media here might say the person is “seriously ill in hospital”. Two things: To me, injury and illness are completely different. Also, in America it would be the hospital. Tornwordo, an American expat in Canada, says in his blog Sticky Crows (which is what actually prompted this list) that “the” disappears there, too.

• In America, companies are referred to like a single entity (“Microsoft has announced…”). In New Zealand, they’re treated as plural (“Microsoft have announced…”).

• When referring to things in America, Kiwis use the adjectival form of a state name, even though Americans don’t. For example, Americans might say, “the California spirit is often thought of as laid back.” Kiwis would say “the Californian spirit is…” Sure, they’re technically correct, but it just sounds damn weird.

• New Zealanders say something is in the North Island or in the South Island, not on it. No one seems to know why.

• When I arrived in New Zealand, people commented on my “rolled R” in words like “car”, “farther” and so on. In my mind, this meant the sort of “R” that Spanish speakers might use, and mine was nothing like that. What they meant was that my “R” can be heard. Most Kiwis seem to drop the “R” completely, but listen closely and it’s just spoken very, very softly. This leads to problems when they try to write out words by sound, for example, writing “sort” when they mean “sought”. My accent wouldn’t confuse the two, but when a New Zealander says them, they sound almost identical.

• From my first day I also heard new words and phrases that weren’t being widely used (if at all) in America at the time. Among these were phrases like “at the end of the day,” (meaning “in conclusion” or “finally”) and give someone “a shout out” (a greeting, usually associated with acknowledgment; this was popular with Polynesians youths).

• New Zealanders can’t say “properly” or “property”. On the other hand, they correctly pronounce words like “niche” (hint: it doesn’t rhyme with “witch”), “mauve” and “cordial” (though I’ll deny actually admitting this fact). Kiwis and Americans alike sometimes have trouble with “known” and “grown” (they’re both one syllable).

I sometimes joke that America and New Zealand speak the same language—more or less. Actually, it’s not hard to learn to understand “Nyew Zild”, but some effort is needed. I’ve found that having an interest in the people, places and customs here helps. Even after all this time, though, I sometimes still come across a word or phrase I haven’t heard before. To me, half the fun of being an expat is that the learning never stops.