Name: American Slang – On Fleek, Snatched
Uploaded: 2020-03-10T22:23:13.000Z
Duration: 5 min 19 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

What is the difference between an idiom and slang,

and how do you learn them as a non-native English speaker?

Someone asked me recently, what is the difference between an idiom and slang?

And I thought, you know what?  I’m not sure!

So I did a little research, I did a little thinking about it, and I got it.

First, an idiom is something almost every native speaker of a language will know,

Slang is something that many native speakers won’t understand.

So for example, the idiom, it’s raining cats and dogs,

You could ask any native speaker this and he or she would know what it meant.

But if you said, what does ‘bae’ mean?

This is slang, most people probably wouldn’t know.

There, it depends entirely upon who you ask.

Let’s go back to the idiom 'it’s raining cats and dogs.'

I’ve seen a couple of different opinions, but it’s been in use for centuries, since the 1500s or 1600s.

Slang, on the other hand, is developed, used, and then dies before too long.

For example, when I was working on this video,

Then someone else said, that’s kind of passed.

When I was talking to my husband David about this, he said, ‘on fleek’ is kind of, like 3 years ago.

We’ll get to that in a second.  The point is,

some slang might only be in use for a year or two

So if many, maybe even most native speakers don’t understand slang, what’s the deal?

Slang is the creation of the younger generation.

They play with language much more, they create new ways to use words and even create new words.

So if you’re trying to understand people in their teens and twenties

and know no slang, you’ll probably feel left out in some conversation.

on the use of the word ‘dumb’ as slang,

I had lots of people say, I’ve never heard that word used that way.

My husband works in a high school, so he picks up on lots of slang.

That’s why this summer is going to be the Summer of Slang.

Because if you don’t know people who are using slang,

then you have no idea what these terms mean.

When they pop up, when you see them, when you hear them, you’re at a loss.

Every video I make for the rest of July and August is going teach popular and current slang.

Today, we’re going to learn ‘on fleek’ and ‘snatched’.

As I said, ‘snatched’ is perhaps replacing ‘on fleek’.

They have the same meaning, and that is, really great.

It’s a very positive way of describing something.

And it can describe anything from your eyebrows to your clothes to something you’re eating.

A good way to get context around slang, to help you understand how slang is used,

#onfleek has something like 1.7 million public posts

so you can see what exactly is being described as ‘on fleek’.

And ‘snatched’, #snatched  has about 350,000 public posts.

On fleek – a two-word, phrase, stress will be on the second word.

Snatched ends in the CH-T cluster.  That’s a little tricky,

you might want to practice it slowly:  snatched.

Most slang takes actual English words and uses them in a different way.

Not a word that already existed in American English.

If someone uses your name and ‘snatched’ or ‘on fleek’ in the same sentence, it’s a good thing.

Keep your eyes peeled (That’s an idiom!)

for a new Summer of Slang video every Tuesday in July and August.

That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

American Slang – On Fleek, Snatched

phrase

context

awesome

practice