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The official language might sound completely different in one English-speaking country than another.

But today I’m going to reveal a little trick to help you learn two of the biggest English variants, American and British, in an easy and fun way: watching English language TV shows with British and American versions will help you understand slang and language quickly and nicely!

Stranger Things: How to learn from British and American TV shows?

Here are some tips to get you started:

● Watch an episode of each version of the show in English and in your language and observe the differences. Do they say exactly the same words or are the shows written differently? How are the events, stories, and characters different in each language? Try to understand why these changes were made.

● Listen to how the characters speak and pay attention to accents, slang, and vocabulary. You will begin to see the differences and similarities.

● Study the culture. How do people in an office speak? How do family members and friends speak? When are they casual and when are they professional? These lessons may be important if you choose to visit either country.

STRANGER THINGS: the Z generation dictionary 

With Stranger Things, one of the series that has been wildly successful on Netflix, telling the adventures of a group of kids struggling with supernatural events, you can discover new ways to use teen and new generation terminology in a very simple way. 

I’ve selected a few examples for you and to show you how much fun learning English can be!

“Sometimes, your total obliviousness just blows my mind.” 

When someone leaves us stunned or upset, the expression “blow my mind” is used. This expression can be used in a positive, negative, or ironic way.

“I just didn’t want you to think I was such a wastoid, you know?” 

One of the rare flashes of 1980s terminology that made the cut in Stranger Things, “wastoid” appears in a conversation between Mike and Eleven after an encounter with bullies. A wastoid in this context is used to describe someone as a loser. This is slightly different from how it might normally be perceived.

In the 1980s cult classic The Breakfast Club, Bender is described as a “wastoid” because he wanted to “set himself on fire” after taking drugs from his locker. The suffix “-oid” means “similar to, but not the same as” or “in the likeness of”. So it can also be used as a derogatory term to describe someone you might regard with contempt.

“We forget the weirdo and go straight to the gate.” 

While searching for their missing friend in the woods, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin come across Eleven, the strange girl with a somewhat limited vocabulary.

As they struggle to understand her powers and origin, Lucas quickly refers to her as a “weirdo”, which is a much younger synonym for eccentric, weird, and crazy. This term emerged in the mid-20th century and is used to describe a person who behaves in a bizarre way.

“It’s because she’s been dating that douchebag, Steve Harrington.”

Episode 1 of Stranger Things features the use of this word, setting the tone for how the teens interact with each other. In the mid-1980s, the historical period in which Stranger Things is set, “douchebag” would have been a relatively new insult. In both British and American slang, it is used to describe a “despicable person”.

The word is thrown around casually by the characters, from younger kids to older teens. It would have been a fairly used part of a 1980s teenager’s vocabulary, popularized by the Saturday Night Live skit “Lord and Lady Douchebag”, E.T., Revenge of the Nerds and, shortly thereafter, the Schwarzenegger classic Terminator 2.

Did you know the definitions of all these words and phrases used in the TV series? 

Find out the next trivia in the following articles!

EPLS