JSランゲージスクールブログ | Texting and internet phrases
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Today I will talk about texting and internet phrases that are commonly used by native English speakers. The phrases I will talk about are lol, brb, bae, DM, tbt, and yolo. There are many other abbreviations we use commonly, but they contain swear words so you will have to do your own research about those!
First, and probably the most common abbreviation for texting and the Internet is “lol”. It means “laughing out loud”. It is used in the same way as “w” is used in Japanese. We add “lol” to many of our messages, even when things are not funny. I use “lol” in almost every message I send.
The next abbreviation is “brb”. This means “be right back”. We use this when we are having a conversation with someone but then something happens and we have to leave the computer for a minute. We don’t want the other person to think we are ignoring them so we just send a message saying “brb” to let them know we are going to be busy for a few minutes.
“Bae” is one of the words that have become extremely popular in the past couple of years. It means “before anyone else” and is used to talk about your boyfriend or girlfriend. It was even added to the Cambridge dictionary because so many people (especially teens and people in their 20s) use it. It is like the new and trendy version of “honey” or “baby”.
The next abbreviation is DM. This means “direct message”. This is used a lot on SNS such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. If someone tells you to DM them, they are asking you to message them privately instead of posting on their wall or feed.
Next we have the abbreviation “tbt”. This means “throwback Thursday”. This is a hashtag (#) that started on Instagram. On Thursdays, many people will post old photos of themselves as a throwback. A throwback is to show something that happened in the past.
Last is the abbreviation “yolo”. This means “You only live once”. Many people use this phrase when they do something they shouldn’t or do something they want even if it is dangerous, expensive, etc.
I hope you learned a lot of new abbreviations you can use next time you’re on the Internet or messaging with foreign friends!
