TWENTY American Slang Words To Know (+ Swear Words! 🙊)

Hey guys! Welcome or welcome back to my channel. As many of you know, I am a native English speaker from the U.S. and I teach English across TikTok, Instagram, and now YouTube. And I recently asked you guys on Instagram what topics you would like me to cover on my YouTube channel and I had several responses and someone requested American slang words. by which I think they mean swear words or bad words in English. So stick around until the end of this video and I'll cover a couple of those as well. Before I begin, I also want to make a suggestion to help you remember these words. Someone else asked how to remember new vocabulary. So right now I'm going to be teaching you these new words so you will have the visual part of your brain switched on. Maybe you have captions turned on for this video so you can also see the words as I'm saying them. So that part of your memory will be working for you, the visual part. Also the listening, you are listening to me say these words so hearing them is also going to help with memory. But I suggest you also grab a notebook and a pen and you write down each word in your own hand because when we physically write things down this also triggers an important part of our memory to help remember these words in the future. And then of course you always have them to refer to very quickly in your notebook. Alright so in today's video we are learning American slang words. Now slang words are words used in informal language but used very often by native speakers and you won't necessarily find these words in your English textbooks but you will see them on TV shows, maybe in podcasts, and of course you will hear them in everyday conversation. I'm from the U.S. so I'm going off of my own experience here and I'm going to teach you the American slang words. Now it doesn't mean that you have to use these words but it's important for you to know and understand them if you are interacting with native speakers on a daily basis because it will help you understand them if they use these words. Maybe you do live in the U.S. and you want to sound more American, more like a native speaker, then by all means integrate these words into your everyday speech and you will definitely sound more like a native speaker. Alright the first slang word I have for you today is hang out. Hang out means to spend time with someone and it's generally used for friends. So if your friend asks you, hey do you want to hang out? They probably mean going to your place or you going to their place and spending time together, watching a movie, making dinner, having a drink or whatever it is that you do with your friend. You just hang out. Chill. Chill means to relax. If someone asks, hey what are you up to? You might say, oh I'm just chilling. You're not doing much. You're at home or maybe you don't want to do too much that night and someone asks you to go out somewhere but you say, oh I just want to chill. You just want to relax at home. You might also use chill in the context of telling someone to chill. So if someone's getting a little upset or the conversation is getting heated, if you tell someone to chill, you are telling them to relax, take a step back or don't be so upset about something. Dude. Dude is often used to describe a male. It just means a guy. So you could say, I saw a dude buy that at the store the other day. You just mean you saw a man. But dude is also used among friends and not just for men. Women could also call each other dude if you're really excited about something. Dude, that's so cool. Something like that. Lit. Lit means cool. If you went to a concert and you said it was lit, you mean that it was really cool, awesome, exciting, you loved it, it was lit. Nuts. Nuts is another word for crazy. So maybe you hear a story that shocks you or surprise you. You might say, wow that's nuts. And this can be used in a positive or a negative sense. If it's something that you think is over complicated, you might say, oh this game is nuts. But it could also be something that you really enjoy. Like a thriller movie that has lots of twists and turns, you might say this movie is nuts. Low-key. Low-key means something that is indiscreet. It's not drawing attention to itself. You can use this for pretty much anything. An example could be to describe an event like a wedding. If they just had a small ceremony, not too many people, you might say their wedding was really low-key. Bail. Bail is a verb and in American slang it means to cancel plans. So if you bail on your friend, then you have told them, usually last minute, sorry I can't come anymore or sorry I can't hang out tonight. I'm going to Down-to-earth is usually used to describe people. Someone who is down-to-earth is someone who is approachable, humble, genuine, easy to talk to. So if you describe someone as down-to-earth, it's a really good quality to have. Hangry. Hangry is a combination of the words hungry and angry and this is a slang word that I use a lot because I often get hangry. Hangry means that you are in a bad mood because you are hungry. So if you're trying to choose somewhere to eat with your friends and no one can make a decision, you might say hurry up because I'm getting hangry. Sick. In American slang, if something is it's not a bad thing. Sick means really cool. Wow, that car is sick. FOMO. FOMO is an acronym for fear of missing out and it's exactly that. It is the fear of missing out. So if you're sick at home or you couldn't go out with your friends for some reason and you see pictures of them online all having fun, you might experience FOMO. You are feeling a little upset that you are missing this time with your friends. Bummer. Bummer is something that is disappointing. So if something you were really looking forward to got canceled, you could say it's a bummer. Couch potato. Couch potato is someone who spends a lot of time sitting on the couch either watching tv or on their phone. It can mean lazy but you could also use it in the sense that you feel like being a couch potato today and your friends will know that you just want to sit on the couch and do nothing. Buck. Buck is an important one to know especially if you live in the U.S. because buck is American slang for a dollar. So someone might ask you do you have a buck and they mean do you have a dollar. Spill the tea. Spill the tea means to share the latest information or the latest gossip. So if you know something your friend doesn't and they ask you to spill the tea, they're asking you to tell them the information you know. Tell them In American slang, tight is used to refer to relationships. So if two people are really tight, it means they are really good friends. Epic. Epic means something that is really cool or extraordinary. That concert was epic. We also use the word epic with fail. An epic fail is something that went really wrong. So maybe you're trying to talk to someone who you're attracted to and they turn you down or they don't want to talk to you. You might say to your friends, well that was an epic fail. Squad. Squad refers to your close group of friends. So if you say I'm going out with my squad tonight, it means you're going out with your main closest group of friends. Dope. Dope is a word that means awesome or really cool. If you really liked something, you could say that was dope. No-brainer. A no-brainer is a decision that wasn't hard to make. It didn't take a lot of thought. So maybe you're offered a job with higher pay. Accepting the offer is a no-brainer. Okay guys, so those were 20 slang words used in American English in everyday speaking that are definitely useful for you to know. As promised, I will now cover a couple bad words in English. We can also call these curse words or swear words. And you do have to be careful who you use these around. If you find yourself in the middle of the US, so not on the east coast and not on the west coast, but right in the middle or a little bit south maybe too, a lot of people are very religious and they would not appreciate if you use these words around them. But I will also give some cleaner alternatives that you can use for these words as well. Okay, the first bad word I have for you today is damn. So again, for religious people this word is not very popular because it does have connections to hell, right? Be damned to hell. That's where the word comes from. So some cleaner versions of this word would be dang or darn or rats. And these are all exclamations of frustration. If you're frustrated about something, you might use damn, but you could also use one of these more polite versions, oh my god or omg. This one is used very frequently, but again some people might be offended by the use of the word god if they are religious. So some alternatives would be oh my gosh or oh my goodness. These phrases can be used in a variety of situations, either in a negative connotation or in a positive one. So whether you're really frustrated by something or you're really excited, you can use oh my god, ---- or holy ----. Again, this could be offensive to a lot of people, so careful when you use it. Both of these phrases are used in negative or positive situations. It's an exclamation of either frustration or excitement. And some alternatives could be crap, which is usually used when you're frustrated, but it's maybe a little bit softer. Or you could say holy cow or oh snap if you're surprised about something. Those are a little bit better alternatives. Bullshit. Usually this word refers to something that is ridiculous or not true, but you may hear people use BS or just shorten it to bull. So if someone says that is totally BS, they mean that's totally false. That's not true. But all of these words, including BS and bull, they're still not really nice words to use. It's still a little bit rude. Okay, the last one I will cover today is SOB. You might see this one used in American slang and that stands for son of a bitch. And bitch is of course a pretty bad swear word in English. I would avoid using this one completely. Generally it's a pretty offensive word to use, but when people say SOB or they might say son of a, it's a general exclamation of frustration or to describe someone usually in a negative sense. Okay, so there you go. I covered some naughty words. I covered a lot of American slang words. Whether you use them or not, it is very helpful for you to know these words, what they mean, and you can know what words not to use so that you don't offend the person you're talking to. I hope you guys enjoyed this video today. If you did, please click that like button. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and turn notifications on so you don't miss any future videos. Thanks for watching. See you next time. Bye, guys.