a very common problem amongst English learners and that is that usually learners of any language tend to

use the same words all the time.

Now if you want to sound more confident and natural when you speak English, then it can be really useful

to observe what are the different ways in which natives kind of say the same thing.

and this also makes it a lot more fun.

now one of the most rewarding parts of learning another language is that you can make friends from all over

the world and you're really using the language it's kind of a tool for connection

so we thought that the perfect place to start speaking about vocabulary would be to dive into different ways

to talk about friendship

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subscriber Zebanaaz, who says she is not only improving her English but also

learning a lot about American culture

now before we get started let me explain

to you how this lesson will be structured so it's actually broken into

three different parts so first off we're gonna talk about useful synonyms which

are much better than using the word friend in English

Next we're gonna talk about some creative alternatives to this word.

And finally we'll dive into phrasal verbs

and expressions related to friendship that you can use all the time.

And of course true to our style you won't just be memorizing a long list of

vocabulary we're going to make it really fun and easy to remember using your

favorite TV series movies and so much more

alright ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, let's dive into this super fun

lesson all about friendship.

Now I'm sure you already know the word friend is probably the most

common one that you will find in the USA but I bet you also know another word

that is commonly used in other english-speaking countries.

now of course the word mate is very commonly used in Australia, the UK

among other countries but in the USA you'll also find it attached to other words

such as "roommate," "teammate" or "classmate."

Now, some of the most common alternatives that you can use to call a friend

so the first one is "bro" and there are also some common alternatives to this one

that you can encounter such as "brotha" "bruda" "bra"

if you're in South Africa you could here bru.

now of course this is a very masculine sounding word and it's mostly used to

refer to male friends but you can also use it with close female friends

although you can also encounter alternatives such as "sister" or "sis"

Now, the next one that you can very commonly hear is "buddy" and this is often

shortened just to "bud."

I would say that buddy is probably more colloquial in the way that you could actually hear

it just used to refer to any person

so you could say "How are you doing, buddy?"

you see someone even if they're just kind of an acquaintance they're not

really a close friend but the next one "dude" you would probably use more

commonly with people who actually are your friends or who are part of your

group of friends to say "Hey dude can you do me a favor"

or "Hey dude what are you doing this weekend?"

now another very similar one to "dude" is man

and this can actually be used to refer to both guys and girls.

"How's it going man," "What's up, man?"

The next one is fella now I probably wouldn't use thisone so often it's actually derived from

the word fellow and this is probably thought of as kind of old-fashioned but

depending on the area of the United States that you go to you could actually

encounter people using this in the same way as man or dude or buddy

The last one is pal now this one is very similar to buddy and the way that it

might be used sometimes even with someone who's not necessarily a friend

and also it's kind of similar in the way to fella that you'll encounter it more

in certain parts the United States than others.

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all right so now let's look at some alternatives that you could also encounter native saying

or that you could use if you want to sound a little bit more creative with your English

so first off you probably know that if you're in a relationship with someone and you're

not married yet that you would call this person your boyfriend or girlfriend respectively

however you'll also encounter women using the word

girlfriend to refer to friends of theirs that are female so this doesn't mean

that they're in a relationship romantically with this person but it

just means that they consider that person to be a close female friend

however for men the word boyfriend does not work in the same way it only

connotes a romantic relationship

something else that's really fun about English is that is such a blend it's a fusion of a lot

of different words coming from other languages and with the word friend

there's actually some alternatives that are derived from other languages coming

from the influence of immigrants as well as just popular culture so one of the

most common ones comes from Spanish amigo and of course you're not going to

say this with a Spanish accent at all you would just say it like an American would: amigo

and a couple others that are drive from other languages are compadre and paisan

actually there's a really great clip from friends where they use this

and another interesting influence on American English of course is the culture of rap

and from this there are many words that first started really within groups of rap culture or even

within gangs but have found their way into mainstream culture and that you'll

really find virtually anyone using

but of course keep in mind these words are more informal so you probably wouldn't use

them in such a professional setting

so the most common one that you will

encounter people saying is the word homie and then there's also some other

words derived from this such as homeboy or homegirl respectively or homeslice

so you could say for example "Hey homeslice can you hand me another piece of pizza"?

another fairly common one is dawg and you'll hear this like what's up dawg

but if you're actually using this for texting it is spelled different than the

animal it's spelled DAWG and I think there's even a little bit more emphasis

on that ah sound in the middle so it's dAWg.

The next one I think maybe is not so common nowadays as it

used to be I remember a lot of people used to say this in the 90s and that is

my nizzle and there's kind of a colloquialism that goes along with this one

and that's for shizzle my nizzle and this actually kind of shows us some

reduction some connected speech this basically you would be the same as

saying for sure dude or for sure friend so basically the for gets shortened to

fo fo shizzle meaning for sure and then my gets reduced to mah my nizzle

for shizzle my nizzle

one that I don't use so much but that is very popular with younger people nowadays is fam

now this is a shortened from family and it's used to refer to someone that you are very close to

almost as if you were actually family

and finally these ones coming from

rap culture the last one is son now kind of similar to saying like bro or fam

we're kind of using this to refer to somewhere that we're close to as in family

but you can also just hear this colloquially used on the street

finally of course there's terms that are used in a friendly way to refer to

someone such as their function so an example of this would be the word roomie

now this is derived from roommates and it's kind of shortened as a lot of words

are with the e sound and basically roomie would be a kind of friendly way

to refer to someone that is your roommate now keep in mind that in

American English the word roommate does not actually mean that you share a room with someone

this is just someone that you live with whether it is in the same room

but it could also be in the same apartment or the same house

now do you know what they would say in the UK for a similar term to this

they would actually say flatmate because the word flat is used instead of the word apartment

and then we have some terms for friends that are only used in the plural that is to refer

to your group of friends now one that is related to one that we just saw is my

boys or my girls used to refer to your group of guy friends or your group of girlfriends

now, one that you could commonly encounter in the UK is lads

so you can hear people from England say the lads when they're referring to their

group of male friends

and then instead of saying the lads in the u.s. you would probably hear more

common the guys for example "I'm going out for pizza and beers with the guys"

the next one is a sidekick this is a person who spends time with or helps

another person especially when that other person is more important than they are

in movies it's common to see a main character and his or her sidekick like

spongebob and his sidekick Patrick or Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Watson

probably one of the most classic examples of this is Robin being sidekick to Batman

with that in mind when you think of these two guys who would you say is the sidekick

actually Chandler and Joey are both important characters in friends

an appropriate alternative to define their friendship might be

partners in crime, this is a humorous way to refer to two

friends and again to help you to understand the concept of this term

Chandler and Joey are the perfect example

Steven Tyler here says this phrase to refer to a girl he's in love with.

so you already know the use of bro or brother to refer to a friend

a humorous extension to that is the phrase brother from another mother or alternatively

sister from another mister

the idea is that you two are so close that it feels

almost like a literal brother or sister

the next is wingman check out how it's used here

a wingman is a friend who supports you especially a man who supports another man when trying to meet

or talk to possible partners here's a couple clips where Sheldon and Marshall

show us how not to be a good wingman

by the way would you like us to make a lesson teaching

you some terms for flirting and dating like wingman well then all you have to do

is give this video a like to let us know

Aww yeah, so now you are a master of different ways to say friends so you

don't just have to sound boring when you're actually referring to someone

that you have a close relationship with

you can be more creative and confident

when you speak but that's not all

let's actually look at some phrasal verbs and

expressions related to friendship so we'll start off in this section with a

quiz imagine that after meeting a person for the first time you really like that

person and he or she likes you back

so which of these options would express that?

keep in mind that most of these expressions that will teach you can be

used to describe a platonic relationship with a friend or a romantic interest

let's see an example of how clicked is used in a non romantic sense with Cameron and his students

and another example click being used in a romantic sense

a very similar expression is to hit it off with someone we showed you the end of this clip at

the beginning of this lesson but let's watch this sequence from the beginning

also note the use of wingman here

next is bond

this means to form a close relationship with someone