Learn Native Vocabulary I 20 Different Ways To Say "Stupid"

[Music] welcome to the real life english podcast where we help dedicated english learners just like you cultivate the courage the confidence and the skills that you need to understand real life native english to communicate clearly with people from all around the world and to make your life an epic global adventure now are you ready to go beyond the classroom and start living your english can i get an aw yeah this week we're teaching you words that natives use instead of stupid we're not encouraging you to start insulting people however if you learn this vocabulary that ethan and i discuss in this week's podcast then you're going to start understanding tv series movies the news twitter presidential debates and much more so you'll be learning lots of american and british english vocabulary as well as phrases and also if you head on over to our instagram real life dot english you'll have some bonus vocabulary there so make sure you check it out after listening to this podcast oh yeah boys and girls citizens of the world this is ethan from reallife english where we believe that listening to podcast is a fun natural convenient and incredible way to learn english so download this podcast and listen to it while you're stuck in traffic singing in the shower or even driving in your car to the supermarket oh yeah i'm here in the barcelona studio while the not so physical barcelona studio as always by the lovely andrea how's it going andrew i'm great thank you it's a little bit cloudy today which we're not so used to these days but i'm i'm great if you're if you're watching this actually on youtube then you'll probably see that maybe it's a little bit gray it's a little bit grayer which isn't so common in barcelona i think both of us live here because we love the sunny weather and we have very few days like this in the year exactly yeah so when it happens for us we are a bit disappointed but it's not so bad not quite as bad as london right definitely not no so that said today we are talking about a pretty fun topic and we don't want you to think that we're trying to promote that you're going out there and like starting to call people stupid or idiot or other words like this but really this is a topic that you will find very practical actually because from watching tv series to watching the presidential debate or even if you follow president trump on twitter you'll probably see a lot of these words used and we were just talking about this beforehand that uh in pop culture you'll hear it all the time if you're with friends maybe you'll use some of them in kind of a joking way and so we're going to cover everything from like what you might hear in the media that would be more formal to things that you could kind of use in a joking fun way with your friends if you have like a lot of a close relationship with them exactly i definitely think this is a really useful podcast because you're going to understand native so much better so it's not necessarily that you have to start using these words but i mean if you're with your friends you might use some of them but it's more just to really help your understanding exactly and that really is real life english so we want to prepare you for how english is spoken in the real world and of course even insults are important in the real world so that said before we get into all of the fun that goes along with these different words we're going to give a shout out to a very special listener out there [Music] so today's shout out comes from canada and it comes from dr hvs aurora and it's five star review that says thanks a ton my god why didn't i get to know you before thanks for making my english better than ever before i'm improving cheers to you guys oh yeah thank you so much doctor that is really fantastic to hear that your english is better than ever before with us hopefully after this episode if you're listening it will be even better yes for sure so if you want us to shout you out it's really simple you just have to head over to apple podcast stitcher or wherever you're listening to us from and leave us a five star review and the really fantastic thing is that when you do this you're helping other learners from around the world to also have a ton of fun learning with us and to make their english better than ever so that said we have a fantastic quote for you [Music] so today's quote is by galileo galilei and it is i never met a man so ignorant that i couldn't learn something from him i think that's very relevant to today's podcast because even when you think maybe someone is stupid or you can't really understand how they possibly think that way i love this quote because it kind of like reminds me that when you meet someone new there's always something that they know that you don't know even if it seems like that person maybe isn't very smart or they have very different beliefs from you they're definitely going to be an expert at something i completely agree and also you could also learn certain things like you might learn more about yourself and you might also learn maybe how not to do things or you know how not to be in a certain situation so for sure you'll always learn something yeah and i think definitely that's a that's a really good point like you can learn what not to do from other people's mistakes or shortcomings but um yeah i think that it's really great because during this time uh for example the united states where we have so much conflict and polarization surrounding the elections very different political opinions which we did another podcast on so you definitely should go listen to that if you're interested in hearing a little bit more about our opinions surrounding the american politics but i think right now it's really important to kind of like have that empathy to be able to try at least to see the other person's point of view to maybe see where they're coming from because even if it seems absurd to you maybe that someone could possibly vote for that other person or could possibly have those other beliefs you have to see that you know maybe they're coming from a different world view and they have kind of different values and i think if you can understand that even if you don't agree with it it's going to kind of help you to develop as a person definitely i couldn't agree more it's just about understanding each other and like what you said having empathy and just if you try to do that then you're not being ignorant you know you're trying to see the other other view and like you said earlier as well you might learn something so it's really important to have an open mind and you don't have to agree with it but you can at least try to understand it yeah the thing i always like to think about is probably if you grew up in the same circumstance as that person you would have the same beliefs so you know it's just by pure coincidence even if you are right even if your values are better or whatever the case is it's really just pure coincidence probably that you were fortunate enough to kind of like grow up with those beliefs or to have had the education that you have that kind of like gave you those beliefs so i think it's always good just to maybe be able to see where the other person came from and maybe if you know they didn't have the same opportunities as you maybe there's a certain way that you can have empathy there like we said so that said i think that that's a kind of a great mindset to roll into today's main topic which is maybe not quite so empathetic [Music] all right so we will start first with some words that they mean like stupid and they would be somewhat insulting but they're very very soft so you'll hear these even i think in formal situations if you're reading the newspaper if you're watching the news they might use these to kind of say in a way that's not nice but you know not quite as belittling or insulting that someone maybe wasn't thinking so much definitely i think these are a bit more formal and but i mean they're still to the point but they're not quite as rude as some of the others maybe exactly so the first one we have is short-sighted so what does this mean exactly do you know like the etymology behind that yeah so if you are actually short-sighted it's usually to do with your site so if you're someone that wears glasses and maybe you can't see very far you can only see close-up you would be described as short-sighted but you can also use it to talk about someone that maybe is not being very smart in that moment because if you're short-sighted then you're not really looking at the long-term you're not like looking maybe even at the global picture you're just very much looking at the short term right exactly and i think it's maybe not so smart from that point of view if you're not planning for the long term or for the consequences that could come from your actions right now then basically you're short-sighted you're not really thinking about it so that's something that i think you could hear all the time like someone could say that the president or some politician made some short-sighted decision or you know any sort of like article or anything that you'll read this one could be quite common right definitely like even one that comes to mind for me as well is like brexit i think so many people when they were voting for brexit they were so short-sighted because they didn't really realize how it was going to affect the country and individuals as well and many people see that now and maybe would vote differently but you know it's too late now but definitely they were short-sighted that's a perfect example so another way that you might hear someone say this would be the one that we used in the quote we said ignorant or another very similar word is naive yeah so if someone is ignorant like we explained a little bit earlier they're just not listening or seeing the other side they don't want to maybe they don't know about it but that's just the same if you're not trying to learn about it then you're still ignorant exactly and then naive like you tend to think of a child maybe being quite naive because they haven't had so much life experience and so when they're making decisions it's based on their limited experience and you know maybe they can be a bit naive in that sense that they're not really making an informed decision on something yeah it's a word that's very similar to when if you say someone is innocent like they don't really have that that life experience and stuff but we use it usually to say that someone maybe wasn't so smart or they're not so smart because of that lack of experience right exactly so another one i think it's quite formal would be like unintelligent it means like intelligent means you're smart so it's the opposite of that right yeah this one's nice and simple it's you know just the opposite of intelligence so you'll probably you'll probably hear this as well it's definitely a more formal one a more proper one to say rather than being too too rude but it is still obviously if you're calling someone intelligent it can still be quite insulting definitely and finally this one maybe it's it's start it's a good transition into the next level or something but it's dense yeah so if someone's dense it means well we would actually in the uk we would say thick rather than dense yeah yeah but it means the same thing right exactly so actually in the us we do something similar like thick headed which i think is almost like i think that maybe like your skull is so thick that like things just aren't going in like you're not hearing the other person or you're you're ignorant right exactly so that's what i imagine the same with dents like you would imagine that there's not much space for things to go through and for you to compute them or understand them and that's where it comes from it almost maybe has a certain stubbornness to it as well like that you maybe i have a certain sense of pride or something so you don't want to change your opinion not because even even though like you recognize the other person's right you just have like that pride that arrogance or that stubbornness that is keeping you from changing your your opinion so you're like being dense in that moment yeah that definitely makes sense so that said those are all the formal ones so we're going to take it to the next level so ones that they're not formal certainly but they're not super informal either you could probably still hear some of these on the news or in different sort of like media and things like that so kind of like we were talking about dense that you're saying maybe like someone has a thick skull or something like that i think a lot of these different expressions have to do with something about your head or your brain or your mind so you'll kind of hear this theme so on this kind of like level of things that are not so formal not so informal we have first off that someone is brainless mindless or empty-headed which all mean kind of the same thing right yeah so before we were talking about dents like maybe when there's just not enough room for movement and like new information in there but then you can also think like when you think of someone that's stupid you maybe think of them being mindless or not having much in there in reference to their brain i suppose yeah that's definitely a perfect description and kind of like similar to that we'll say maybe that someone is like slow or we have other ways that we'll say this is like slow-witted or then with like the witted wit comes from cleverness right yeah being smart having wet yeah exactly so let's say someone is slow slow-witted or half-witted or we call that person a half-wit okay yeah would you use all these um we would say slow i'm not sure about slow-witted and half-witted i don't haven't really heard those as much in the uk maybe there are some alternatives that we would use um but obviously i've heard of them but i don't think they're used as much maybe that surprises me because i always think like one of the stereotypes that we have of brits is that they have a witty sense of humor yeah so i thought wit naturally was like a word that you would use a lot yeah wit we do like maybe i suppose we use it more to say when someone is witty or they have a witty sense of humor and things like that and maybe we tend to use it less to describe them if they are not that yeah so i think that this is definitely a really good one at least in the us that's slow-witted like you definitely i think could hear this in situations maybe where someone's not wanting to be so to the point but it's definitely not a compliment by any means so so far we have kind of things like not having a brain being a little bit slow we could also say that you're foolish or you're full or in the us i think you could even hear this wouldn't this would be more informal but if you say like someone's a damn fool oh wow really emphasizing is that for emphasis yeah yeah exactly and i suppose we would say bloody definitely here's a bloody fall a bloody thought yeah we would use this as well in the uk and especially like when you want to tell someone maybe that their behavior hasn't quite been correct you might say you were so foolish what were you thinking does it come from i'm not sure exactly is it some sort of performer yeah isn't it whether i made that up isn't a fool the same as a gesture yeah that's what it makes me think of yeah a jester what's the jester exactly a jester is like what the kings and queens used to have i think i guess it's also like a joker like when you play we were actually talking earlier today about poker so when you play poker there's like a card that a lot of times is used as a wild card called the joker uh and that comes from the same kind of character right so it's like a sort of like a comedian someone would do like silly things or or make jokes for for example the king or queen so this person could also be called like the fool and from that that person maybe is a little bit like a clown so from that i guess we got it for like a person who's not so smart exactly yeah i think that's where it comes from as well you can just picture it as well can't you exactly exactly yeah so another one which is maybe kind of similar i think to saying someone is slow you might say that they're not so bright or they're dull right yeah we would we would say the same we would say they're not very bright and i suppose you could say they're a bit dull um we have an expression as well actually with doll dollars dollars dishwater have you heard that one dull is dishwater is dishwater very dull yeah because i suppose like you know if you if you fill up your sink with the water and you're cleaning the dishes and then it starts to get murky and dirty and it's very dull i think that's where that one comes from all very good words there murky murky you can't use it as an insult but like thinking about dishwater that's a a good adjective to use yeah so if something's murky it's not clear it's not very clean you can't really see and see through it well murky waters exactly so that's another really great one to use as an insult as well saying so you say like doll is dishwaters and insults as well yeah you might not say it to the person but maybe if you're talking about them to someone you might describe them this way but you could say it to the person as well yeah you're a bit dull as dishwater that's a great one i'm gonna start using that so similarly to some of these ones we said there's a lot with like your head or your mind we have simple minded yeah so again you could even just say simple a little bit as well couldn't you a little bit simple and it's kind of saying again a little bit brainless a little bit slow very similar to that one and then the last two we have i don't know if they're like very american or if you would use these uh we have gullible we say someone is gullible and i remember when i was younger people would say hey look gullible is written on the ceiling to see if you would look up and this is like when you're a kid and you don't know what gullible means oh really oh wow that's really mean yeah i can imagine kids doing that at school um yeah we use gullible as well so it just means that you believe things very easily doesn't it exactly so it's not necessarily like stupid it's just like you're easily convinced of things so this might be i mean i guess it could be kind of maybe someone is stupid because they're not thinking so much about what you're telling them uh but this is someone you know who you could say for example that you know they found a ufo in barcelona yesterday and the person would say really you know instead of being like no that's nonsense here you're making that up yeah it's quite a similar one to naive as well a little bit isn't it it can be certainly yeah so you don't want to be gullible that's certainly uh that certainly won't really help you in life if you're too gullible definitely yeah and talking about elections and things like that as well it's really important to not be gullible during uh important decisions like this as well totally so the last one this one to me sounds very american but you can tell me if you would use it klutz yeah that's really american it's really american yeah so we'd say this like usually i think like someone who's really clumsy like they're um a more formal way to say it might be like maladroit oh i haven't heard that one is that a new one for you that comes from french so it's like a super formal word in english of course um what does clumsy mean yeah so if you're clumsy it means that you've like for example you'll trip up easily like you might drop things easily so you tend to be clumsy like you're just not careful with things and and lots of people i think even call themselves clumsy like when these things happen they're like oh gosh i'm so clumsy and they kind of just accept it maybe and walk into doors and all these sorts of things yeah so if someone does something like that that probably doesn't seem like the smartest thing so we might say you clutch like you're just saying that kind of like you know you did something really stupid and maybe not so uh kind of meaning that that you're not really in control of your body so much yeah i've definitely heard this so i do know it but it is a really american one would is there anything similar that you would use in the uk um i suppose one would be like a numpty maybe like an update yeah oh you're such a numpty like if you keep doing things like that like if you're maybe a bit clumsy you could also maybe use muppet like oh stop it you muppet or something just if someone's a bit clumsy you might use that one as well that was one of those american words that you shouldn't use in the uk right from that podcast we did yeah you need to use it with caution because obviously we all know who the muppets are like kermit the frog and miss piggy but we do use it it's a slang term in the uk yeah to call someone an idiot or someone that's being a bit silly or clumsy and things like that fantastic i definitely think that uh the the muppets definitely seem like clutches so yeah that could be a very fitting one so we also have the word imbecile which i think that also could sound quite quite formal maybe it sounds like a little bit older to me yeah it's definitely a more formal one and i think it is really rude as well like if you're calling someone an imbecile you're like saying that they are really really stupid yeah not the not the kindest word to say to someone but you could hear it you might even hear it right now with the debates or with some things surrounding the elections in the us uh or maybe you could hear it in parliament if you're watching some debate in parliament maybe if someone gets really heated in the moment any politician might lose their temper and say a word like that it's definitely possible yeah what does it mean to lose your temper if you lose your temper it means that you get angry easily exactly so a lot of these words you might say to someone if you lose your temper you get really angry you can't understand how they can possibly think how they think or how they could have done something so stupid then you might say you're imbecile how could you do that exactly wouldn't it be great if there was some way to understand real english without getting lost and without getting bored well now there is with our real life native immersion course we will take you on a 41 week real life adventure of the english language each week exploring a different topic connected to our goal to help you understand and use real native english and make it a permanent part of your life in a way that is fun natural and convenient the best part is you can try for free with our three-part power learning series we will send it to your email just go to reallifeglobal.com pod that's p-o-d to sign up now let's get back to today's podcast lesson [Music] alright so now we're going to move into some more fun ones i think these are the ones that are more informal they're the ones that probably we use more with our friends with our close friends of course or i probably when i was younger would use a lot of these with my brother for example because we bickered all the time yeah i can definitely imagine that and yeah the same with us we would use them with our friends and just with really close family brothers and sisters definitely and i think you'll counter a lot of these if you're watching a tv series or a movie or you're in the united states or the uk yeah because i'm sure the ones that i know that you will tell us that are more american maybe i've heard them from watching tv series and movies not necessarily because we use them in the uk definitely i think i can't say the same maybe so much there is definitely some of these ones that we had from the uk on this list which you guys will learn in a little bit uh they're new for me so that said we had of course like the word already from this podcast stupid that's like a pretty informal one and it's one that we'll use all the time or i think very similarly idiot or saying someone is idiotic they're doing something idiotic or they're acting idiotic yeah and we have a lot i think in the uk we have a lot of versions of saying this as well so what might you say to your to your sister when you were younger and you were getting mad because she was doing something stupid so maybe one that's not too harsh i think is a wally you might call someone a wally yeah so would you use that as an adjective or as a noun you would use it as a noun yeah so you would okay so you call that person a wally yeah so stop being a wally or you'd say oh you're such a wally yeah that's great so i think this word we kind of talked about when we were talking about like words with babies that are kind of like different in the us and the uk right um and one of them was like a dummy so would you use that as an insult in the uk no not really we wouldn't so in the us we use that one a lot too and i think especially like maybe if you're a kid you call someone like a big dummy you're being a dummy so like probably the same as like wally um or you might say dum-dum or just the word dumb okay yeah like like in the uk we would say maybe that someone was dumb for sure but we wouldn't use dummy or dum-dum those are quite funny [Laughter] so next we actually talked before about how a lot of them have to do with brain so we kind of gave you some ones that weren't so informal these ones certainly are more informal so you probably could hear them definitely used in different tv series like we said but they're ones that you definitely want to be careful if you actually use them so in the us at least we use like kind of the suffix brained so like kind of describing someone's brain we'd say like bird-brained p-brained scatterbrained or even hair brained oh wow okay that's that's a lot with brains so yeah i suppose where does bird brains come from i think like any of these just there are ways to describe that that person that person's brain that they have like the brain of a bird which birds have very small brains okay or hair brained that doesn't come from like hair on your head but it comes from hair like a rabbit right it's another another animal so both of those kind of mean the same thing that you have like a small brain like a small animal or p brained means like you have a brain that's the size of p which a p is like those small green vegetables and what is scatter do you know what that would mean scatter brained yeah this one i think we would use as well in the uk so this one i recognized if you're scatter brain it means that you like forget things very easily you'll forget forgetful would they be the same for you yeah i think also like maybe you're disorganized or something like that like you know you're maybe the person who like leaves their phone in the fridge or something is like a little bit scattered brand yeah we would actually use this as well i don't know if you do it'd be interesting to know if you do but we would actually shorten this to scatty scatty no that's definitely british yeah so if someone is scatterbrained we would describe them as scatty yes or would be like oh i'm i'm being so scatty today oh so that's actually a good one right because you can use it for yourself yeah if you know if you're forgetting things or you're disorganized yeah you could even describe yourself as scatty i think the same in the us you could say i'm just a bit scattered brain today so yeah that's actually a lot of these words like that that you can kind of like use a little bit when you're i don't know i don't know if it's the best practice to insult yourself but uh sometimes you might find a moment where you feel like it's appropriate so next we have you might call someone you're such a this is very similar i think to like saying stupid or dum-dum in the us we'd say like you or if we want to say it as an adjective we're saying someone is being moronic definitely yeah so i i haven't really heard moronic that much in the uk but we would call someone a for sure i've heard that and maybe another similar one that we have that's probably a bit more british is twit i haven't heard that one before so how would you use that this is really funny actually because roald dahl the famous author who wrote matilda charlie and the chocolate factory all these great books he also wrote one called the twits and it's a children's book but it's absolutely hilarious like i used to read it all the time to some of my classes and they loved it and it's it's a man and wife it's um a husband a couple a husband and wife and they are very stupid and they're also very mean as well in it but the book is called the twits and it describes them perfectly i think so they are morons they're not very nice people but they're also a little bit dim which is another way to describe it as well i guess that was kind of like we said dull right dim is kind of a similar similar word to that yeah if someone's not very bright they're dim exactly yeah so that's definitely a great way for you to remember that one if you want a british one just think of roald dahl yes we talked about some different ones with brained right we also have some ones with head and there's some expressions that we have as well that we'll have to look at like some american ones and british ones but um we might say that someone is soft in the head okay and we might say someone is a bonehead or we could say like they're bone-headed as an adjective you could call someone an airhead a pinhead or a knucklehead okay yeah some of these i've heard of i haven't heard soft in the head but it makes sense and all the others i've heard i think just from tv series and movies like a bonehead and an airhead like if you think of like these kind of you know these high school movies where it's very stereotypical and there's always maybe a girl or a guy that's a bit of an airhead they're not very bright and i just picture that when you said it it made me think of that i always think of it's kind of funny because like bonehead would just i think bonehead's definitely like an insult but airhead could also be like a little bit maybe more like klutz or scatter brains like those ones that we talked about like i would think of that more that like your head's in the clouds or something we might also say that you're kind of you know maybe not so present not so focused or something like that that makes sense and are there any of these that you would use or would you use something different um yeah i wouldn't i wouldn't use any of these they're definitely very american ones um i'm not sure if we have an alternative in the uk to these ones maybe not not for these ones no so i think these are kind of like interesting too to learn some other words that we have like pin head what's a pin so a pin is like a little sharp metal object it's usually well you can get different types but maybe if you're sewing or you're doing something with material you might use a pin so it usually has a tiny little ball on the top so that you can use it easily and then it threads through very nicely a bit like a needle yeah so it's a good way to pin something yeah so then we have knucklehead knuckles uh what are knuckles so your knuckles if you if you scrunch your hand up into a ball so take your hand and just make make a ball and you make a fist we say so those bones there like if you're boxing or you're punching your knuckles usually um would hit like a punch bag or something not a person because we don't like we don't like violence yeah but that's what your knuckles are exactly it's very clear if you're watching on youtube yes if you're listening to this you can you can just imagine like the bones on the back of your hand those are your your knuckles and if someone is a knucklehead then that's a uh way to say i guess that they're the same as like a bonehead that you don't really have a brain there it's just all bone oh so mean so similarly we could also say like someone is a numbskull would you use that skull no no so what does num mean so if you're numb it's when you don't have feelings so sometimes maybe if you've sat in a funny way you might get what we call a dead leg do you call it a dead leg yeah i would say like uh that your legs falling asleep but i think we could also say like you have a dead leg yeah and that's when it goes numb and then you have to kind of start moving it again to get the feeling back or if you're really cold maybe parts of your body go numb you could even use it to describe when you are really afraid when you get really scared and maybe you freeze and you feel numb that's a great explanation so if you can imagine the same thing happening to someone's head that would mean like blood's not getting to their head right and they're not really thinking so it's kind of the same like numskull someone who's not thinking very much exactly all right so we'll look at some ones i think that the rest of them are a little bit different so we have two words that we use a lot in the united states to talk about someone who is maybe from outside the city they're like a rural person we would say and generally we think these people aren't very educated maybe they have like more traditional beliefs or something you know they're not so modern or something like that and we would call someone like this maybe a hick or a redneck um okay so yeah i've heard i've heard of these terms but we don't use them in the uk i guess maybe just because the landscape and the country is maybe a bit different obviously we do have countryside suburbs all these kinds of things but maybe the demographic is a little bit different or the idea of it is a bit different in the uk to the us yeah i think like the redneck that alone that comes from someone who's working out in the fields all day and their neck would get sunburned and so it's like their neck would be red a redneck so i guess in the uk since you don't have any sun then you couldn't get a sunburn on your neck back to the bad weather again can't happen so both of these kind of mean very similar things and we'd use it a lot to like refer to someone from the country but it's not such a nice word and someone might be very insulted if they actually are that kind of person and you call them a redneck or a hick then that's not going to they might not take so kindly to that and what about a hillbilly does that have anything to do with it or is that insulting in any way it yeah it's very similar um a hillbilly though it's it's like people i think from a certain region the united states that's kind of like the actually like the appalachian mountains which are on the eastern part of the us so like someone in the west you wouldn't really use that word hillbilly it's kind of like more in the east or something but it's kind of similar it's usually like someone maybe they're not very educated and you know they don't live in the city or anything like that maybe we'd also have another one's kind of similar that we use like white trash or trailer trash and this is because like people will live in like motor homes in the us that have been like converted into like a house and these people again that's where trailer trash comes from it's like we think of someone who's you know they're not contributing very much to society they're poor they're not very educated and and generally maybe they're like using drugs or alcohol or anything like that and that's kind of like how we'll insult those people and i suppose it can also be kind of similar to say that someone's not very smart so those ones are very specific to refer to a very specific type of person you were talking earlier about maybe a word that's a little bit similar even though it's not referring to the same demographic so we do have something similar the demographics a bit different but we would describe someone as a chav or even say that someone is chavy again this is probably to do with someone that's not very intelligent maybe again like you described doesn't offer much to society or isn't even really trying and yeah they kind of don't make great decisions or you know try to better themselves or do anything in in any way so they're they're not very intelligent and they also maybe dress a certain way sometimes you would describe someone as a chav maybe if they kind of they're not very well put together or don't even make an effort with the kinds of things that they are wearing as well yeah and i think this is a super british thing because like these people tend to dress in such a specific way and everything is like you can just identify them by seeing them maybe and uh yeah i think in the us we don't it's probably similar to some of these words but we don't have like an exact equivalent of it yeah like for example they might like be wearing loads of different brands so you can see that they're like trainers that adidas and then they're wearing like puma tracksuit bottoms or joggers maybe you would say and then like a t-shirt emblazoned with another brand and then something else and and then like this um one thing that was quite typical was like a cap like a fake burberry cap so burberry's a designer brand that has like this check that's very specific to the brand and you can find fake knockoffs very easily and stuff and you would often see maybe chavs wearing something like this as well and you said that they wear like a jumper or something that's emblazoned with something what does that mean that it's emblazoned so it's printed on the front so you know sometimes you get these brands that have their their slogan or their logo just their branding on the t-shirt but you know it's very very brash and big and obvious in your face exactly yeah so that's a really great one i think to know i think you have to know that if you go to the uk because it's something that you'll see i think even even in in spain when i lived in mallorca there's like some places that i think are quite frequented by chavs by this type of people it's kind of like the places that they like to go on vacation so that's actually where i learned this word because i was with a british friend and they were they were saying like oh this place is full of chops okay yeah that makes sense so that's a really great one and now we have like a couple of great expressions you can let me know if there's any ones of these that you would use um in the uk or if you have some similar one so we might say that someone's not the sharpest tool in the shed do you know what that means yeah we have this expression it's slightly different we would say not the sharpest tool in the box okay like because you have a toolbox that makes perfect sense so shed what is a shed so a shed is maybe if you have a garden you'll have like a little hut like usually made of wood maybe or something like this and you keep your tools in there and maybe a lawnmower and you can use it to store other things as well exactly so basically it makes sense right that we might say also like someone sharp right we didn't talk about that like that's another way to say that you're smart is that you're sharp so if you're not sharp then you're not very smart so that's kind of like a colorful way of describing that that he or she's not the sharpest tool in the shed yeah and i can just imagine someone very british saying this and like saying it in a way to not be too insulting but they might describe someone this way yeah without calling them one of the other kind of more harsh words this one's not so bad yeah yeah and we might say something is half baked have you ever heard that term no what does that mean a half baked means like it's not fully thought through which would obviously kind of like mean also that maybe it's not so smart it's not so intelligently done and we might say like a lot for example the collocation like a half-baked idea it's an idea that wasn't thought through so much so this might be kind of like a more casual colloquial way that you could say that something's more short-sighted okay that makes sense yeah i didn't know that one so like you haven't cooked it all the way is what that comes from okay all right uh we have some ones i think these are also going to be very american but let me know uh we might say i think especially with like kids we'd use this we call someone like a turkey or a goofball have you ever heard that oh i've heard goofball i haven't heard of calling someone a turkey though so it means like the same thing it's kind of like maybe it's not stupid so much but i mean it goes hand in hand because it's kind of like someone's foolish uh but it's kind of like you're being silly right you're you're not acting in such like a proper etiquette or like smarter way maybe you're being so you might think like for example from disney there's like the the dog character that's like mickey mouse's friend his name in english is goofy yes and sometimes people with the teeth as well are described as goofy aren't they because he kind of has the teeth that come out a little bit really yeah what we do in the uk i haven't i hadn't i hadn't heard that description before no but that makes sense yeah and i i have heard goofball but we don't use it in the uk i think an alternative for us would maybe be something like a book that's a really funny it's a really funny word um yeah so it's usually like you'd use it with friends you know if someone's being really silly and or like they just say something really dumb really really stupid you might be like what are you talking about your book [Laughter] yeah so i think in kind of like a similar way right these are pretty light ones yeah would you use that also like with kids i mean you probably wouldn't call a kid this but uh maybe kids would like use it with each other yeah maybe kids would use it with each other they might also use the word div like you might say yeah you're being a div stop being a div and again it just means this kind of thing like stop being stupid or a divvy like oh you're such a divvy [Laughter] so they're very very different ones for these ones that the kids would use right definitely so i think we'll we'll probably wrap it up there right because i think that these are probably of more than enough words to be able to understand if you're watching the media if you're watching a tv series or if you are joking around with your friends definitely there's so many i can't believe like how many there actually are and there's even more than this so it just goes to show you that it is an interesting topic and we'll teach you a few more over on our instagram as always so if you want to learn a few more fun words like this then head over to 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Channel: RealLife English

Views: 22,180

Keywords: ways to say stupid, alternative ways to say stupid, different ways to say stupid, different ways to say idiot, how to say stupid, don't say stupid, stupid, don't say idiot, how to speak english, stop saying stupid, american english, english vocabulary, learn english, learn native american language

Id: mKyz-MUVhb0

Length: 45min 31sec (2731 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 11 2020