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Do you think Britney Spears' music is pop-tastic? Learn another piece of English slang in our new series.
The script from this programme:
Finn: Welcome to the slang-tastic programme, The English We Speak.
Wang Fei: Hello I'm Wang Fei.
Finn: This is our word-tastic programme where you learn the latest English-tastic phrases.
Wang Fei: Yes… erm…
Finn: We hope you have a learning-tastic time with us today…
Wang Fei: Finn, sorry for interrupting you, but why do you keep adding 'tastic' to all these words?
Finn: Sorry Wang Fei, I should have said. Tastic is our new word, or should I say, new suffix, for the day.
Wang Fei: A suffix is something you add onto the end of another word to change the meaning.
Finn: That's right.
Wang Fei: So when we add tastic, what does that mean?
Finn: Well, it's kind of related to the word fantastic. When you add tastic to a word, for example slang, it means 'fantastic in terms of slang'. So English-tastic means 'fantastic in terms of English'.
Wang Fei: And learning-tastic means fantastic in terms of learning?
Finn: It does, absolutely. Let's hear a couple more examples.
- A: Did you hear Britney's new song?
- B: Yes. It's pop-tastic! I love it.
- A: Did you have a good time yesterday?
- B: It was so much fun. Fun-tastic! Ha ha.
Wang Fei: Wow, very good examples. So can I say example-tastic?
Finn: Example-tastic, you can! Now, this way of making new words is very informal – it comes from pop culture – so you probably wouldn't see it in a business letter.
Wang Fei: So, it's not business-tastic?!
Finn: It's not business-tastic. Not really, unless you work in an industry like fashion or pop music. Anyway, I think it's time to tell our listeners about our website.
Wang Fei: Yes, and our web-tastic site is www.bbclearningenglish.com! You can learn English for free, and even download programmes to your mp3 player.
Finn: Yes, it's download-tastic! Time to go, now. Bye!
Wang Fei: Bye!
