Aussie Translation Guide #6

Hey you Mob! It is time for another colorful Aussie Translation guide! Today we are going to talk about Car related words. One of the fun things of Travel is learning the local lingo. Australia has no shortage of their very own Aussieisms. They are fun and inventive, though occasionally hard to translate. Feel free to add a few of your own in the comments section.

Australian

- Ute = Elllll Caaaminnnoooo! The half car/half truck thing that failed miserably in the States. Wildly popular with Tradies (Trades people) and cowboys (Jackaroos). It makes North Americans giggle, while the Pommies just don’t know what to make of them. The Term Ute can sometimes mean truck, but more often than not, it means an El Camino.
- Tarago = Toyota Mini Van, but it has become a generic term for the Mini Van. The Tarago is considered a full size van in Australia with Avis saying you can fit 8 people in them. We tried with a women’s soccer team on our trip to Griffith (see picture above). We fit- but I would not call it comfortable
- Tyre = Tire. The round rubber thing on a car. He he he.
- Boot = The trunk. The back end. Where you store things. Also used in Pommie English…..
- Kerb = Curb. The hard cement thing that denotes where the edge of the road is. People tend to back into them while trying to parallel park on ridiculously narrow streets. Known to wreak havoc on wheel rims.
- Petrol = Gasoline. The thing that makes the car go, unless you have a solar powered car, which are illegal in Australia even though they hosted the first big solar powered car race…..
- Prang = Doh! A crash.
- Bingle = DOH! DOH! A little crash, minor accident, sometimes a big crash but someone is trying to make it sound better. “Sweetheart, I might have had a little bingle this morning…”

Smash Repair = The Auto Body Shop. The place that makes loads of money from the prangs and bingles that continuously occur thanks to the fabulous driving conditions of Australia.