Hey. My name's Ronnie. Today, I'm kind of "meh". Yeah, meh. What? What's "meh"? Is that
even a word? What are you talking about? Meh. Meh - have you seen The Emoji Movie? Oh, I
saw it, it's great, in spite of what people say, and in this movie there's an emoji called
"meh" and his face is like this. Obviously, I am not an emoji designer, nor am I very
good at reproducing it, but you get the point. So, this word, meh, basically means - meh,
it's okay. It's not good, it's not bad, it's kind of okay. So, if somebody said "Hey, oh
my God, did you see that new movie?" "Yeah, yeah I saw it." "Well, what did you think?"
"Meh. It was okay. It wasn't special, it wasn't terrible, it was okay."
If you go to restaurant and you're eating some food - hopefully you've eaten food in
a restaurant - and they say "Oh, so how's the food?" "Meh." Again, this means it's neither
good nor bad. You really don't have an opinion on it, it's just, I don't know, whatever.
So, all of these little words, all of these little phrases like "Meh", or "Mm", "MMM"
"AH!", all of these strange little [gasp] sounds that native English people say, they
actually have a meaning, and it's going to be very different from your language, maybe.
Maybe you have the same, but you have to understand that these little sounds: "Brr", "Meh", "Hm?"
"Huh?" actually have a meaning behind them, and I'm here to help you with this secret
decoding lesson of how to interpret these crazy sounds that these people are making
around you. Maybe you think you're surrounded by aliens, maybe you're the alien, so I'm
These things actually have a name too, wow, they're called interjections. So, interjections
are these little words like "meh", and the first one; one, two, three, four. Wow look
at this, you get one interjection, four different meanings, the reason being - it's going to
depend on how you say it. For example, we have these words, these letters: Hmm. Hmm.
Hmm? Hmmm. Hm! Hmm? If you say it with a rising intonation, that means if your voice goes
up like "Hmm?" and make sure you move your head a little bit because that's what you
do, this means "I don't understand." "Hmm?" So maybe somebody said somebody to you or
maybe you said something and they go "Hm-Hmm?". That's going to indicate to you "Uh oh, this
person doesn't understand me. The next one is if the H's and the M's, the "mmm"s are
prolonged. Prolonged means it takes longer to say, so if I say "Hmmmm.", this is going
to tell you that I'm thinking about something. Maybe I'm thinking about what you said. "Oh,
Ronnie, what did you think about the movie?" "Hmmmm." This is giving me time to think about
something. I don't know yet, but I'll tell you in the future. If the "Hm!" is short and
high pitched, so high pitched means a very high voice, it means "Oh yeah, this is good,
this is a good idea!", or maybe "Hm. Hm!", maybe, I'm thinking about it, I'm considering
it. And, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, if this one with a low register, which is the opposite
of high pitched and instead of very quickly: "Hmm.", this means "Hmm, I doubt it." It means
maybe I doubt what you say. I think that you're maybe telling me something that is not true.
Hmm. So, three - two, two letters said different ways, an H and an M, H & M, has different
meanings depending on how you say it. The other ones, we don't have to worry about how
we say it because there's one way to say it and they have these meanings.
First of all, one of your best friends, but also can be an enemy, is "Um/Ummm". This is
called a hesitation. So, hesitation means, again, I don't know, I'm thinking. The problem
with a hesitation is sometimes when people speak, they say um, um, um, too much. And
there're actually groups that can actually help you if you're doing public speaking,
if you "hm, um, uh" all the time, groups can help you get rid of that, or I can help you
get rid of that, I don't know how, but I will. So, to use this as a hesitation, go "Umm"
or "hmm" "mmm", this shows the person that you understand what they've told you, but
you need time to think about it. Um.
The next one: huh? Now, you have to be careful, the way that you say this, because if you
say it and make face like just did: huh? It can be a little rude, so is a gut reaction,
which means it just happens, actually. "Huh?" This is saying to the person "What?" or "Who?"
or "Why?" or "When?" I don't understand you. I'm asking you a question because I don't
understand what you said. Probably, they want you to repeat what you have said, but they
don't say "I don't understand what you said. Can you please repeat that?" we go "Huh?".
So, if someone says to you "Huh?", they want you to ask the question again.
The next one, ouch! Ah, ouch! This... ouch! Ouch is pain, usually little children, little
babies are taught this: ouch. If you hurt them - don't hurt children! - if you poke
them too hard, they'll go "Ouch, ouchie!" So, I have an "ouchie" or an "ouch". This
Wow! No way, wow! This actually a word. Look at us using words. Wow shows surprise. Nosa,
wow!
Aww. Have you seen this? Has your friend texted you "Aww", and you're like "Ah? Aw? Uh?" "Aww".
This is showing that you think something is cute, so maybe your friend shows you a picture
of their baby, you go "Aww, what a cute baby."
Ahem! Ahem, ahem. Are you paying attention? Really, come on, I'm doing this lesson and
all the sudden you're over there looking over... ahem, listen to me. If you make the sound
"Ahem", we actually say clearing your throat, this immediately gets someone's attention.
Or ahem, you have a cough, so be careful, somebody's just coughing, they don't want
Next one: Aaah! If you hear this - depends on what you're watching - probably somebody's
calling for help. So, this "Aaah!" is a cry for help. Don't do it too loud, don't want
Ah, this is a very Canadian thing: Eh? Eh? Eh? It's also Scottish, eh? This means I didn't
hear you. It's kind of like "Please repeat the question again.", eh?
Eww! You hear those children say this all the time: Eww! I'm sure it's very popular
in American high school girl shows, like: "Emma got eww!" okay? Things like this, this
sound "eww", it means the person dislikes it or they're absolutely disgusted by it.
If something's disgusting, it means you hate it. It almost makes you throw up.
Oops. So, if I spilled something, oops! And this is an immediate reaction because this
is what I learned as a child. This is not something I think about - what word am I going
to say when I drop something? It happens so quickly.
If you have done something and it was challenging but you finally finish it, you can go "Phew!".
Now, this is a "ph". Do you guys know the rule about a "ph"? A "ph" makes an "f" sound.
"Phew!" "Phew!" "Phew!" So, this sound, "phew" or "phew", actually shows relief that you've
done something. Maybe you're holding in a fart "Oh, let me go outside." and you fart
Yahoo! Do you have email? Maybe you have an email account at yahoo.com, yahoo! So "Yahoo"
means joy or happy, so I - my email is so happy right now. Marketing.
Yoohoo! Yoohoo, over here! So, when I was a child, my grandmother would do this. I would
be in a shopping mall, minding my own business, "Yoohoo, Yoohoo! Yoohoo!" Oh my god, Gran,
really? So embarrassing! But this really helps get people's attention with a high pitched
- you gotta get the hand wave, maybe a hankie out - "Yoohoo! Yoohoo, Over here, yoohoo!".
This is kind of different from this, "Ahem". "Ahem" is like "pay attention". This is like
This is something that we do kind of as an automatic reaction to coldness, we go "Brr".
I don't know why we say "Brr". Well, we can't say "Grr" because that's what animals say,
but "Brr" is an automatic reference to being cold. Do you say that in your language, if
And "Hmph". Hmph. Hmph means "You know what, I disagree with you, hmph.", but instead of
actually saying "I disagree with you.", we just go "Hmph". What, why do you disagree,
hmm?
So, all of these tiny little words actually have meaning, so this is how you think that
you're saying a lot of words and "Wow, look at me, I'm saying so many words in English!"
and then a native speaker comes in and says "Huh?" and you go "Uh, what are they talking
about?", so to help you understand native speakers more, you have to learn these interjections.
Hm?