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Franger, pashed, stoked: A guide to Brisbane lingo

Release date: 19 August 2010

'It's my round - what's your poison?'

Ask this question of any non-teetotal Australian and you'll spark the beginnings of a beautiful friendship.

But ask a newly arrived international student and you'll probably receive little more than a puzzled expression.

So say the brains behind Insider Guide, who aim to help Brisbane's estimated 40,000 overseas students settle seamlessly in to life in a new city.

The guide includes an 'Aussie Slang Dictionary', explaining the meanings behind such local linguistic gems as 'dero' and 'stoked'.

Other terms are 'going off' (i.e. 'it's going well'); 'piker' (a person who leaves before an event is over) and 'perve' (to sexually admire).

And foreign students who might have been confused to be offered a 'stubby' from a 'slab' in the 'esky' can find those terms also clarified.

The guide, started by three students in Adelaide two years ago, is being launched in a Lord Mayor-approved Brisbane edition in conjunction with Brisbane Marketing today.

About 15,000 booklets will be handed out to international students with information on everything from hailing taxis to hangover cures.

''I was at a barbecue a few years ago talking to some international students,'' James Martin, the guide's 23-year-old editor, says.

''Some of the problems they had were over Aussie slang, someone would say 'can I borrow a durry?' and they would just have no idea what that meant.

''I thought it would be great fun to create an Aussie slang dictionary.''

The dictionary - packed with phrases gathered from friends, family and the internet - now forms part of the Insider Guides to Adelaide, Melbourne and, now, Brisbane.

Mr Martin says the idea for the Insider Guides came to him when he was working in hospitality and realised many international students he met had ''no idea'' how to enjoy their city.

''Any of the guides produced [for international students] were top-down, from the government, from institutions, but we thought that the people who know the most are the people who live here - the students,'' he says.

The guides are collated with freelance contributions from both international and local students.

QUT business student Yeting Xiao, 21, arrived in Brisbane last October from Hong Kong and now works as a volunteer 'international student ambassador' for Brisbane Marketing.

She offered advice for the guide on topics such as public transport and Brisbane's best Chinese restaurants.

''Having a guide like this when I arrived would have been really good, it would have helped me a lot,'' she said.

''The hardest thing [for me] was transport, zones were a hard concept [to grasp] and very different from how it is in Hong Kong.''

What about language - was Aussie slang an issue?

''Yes - words like 'whatever', it's not used [in Australia] how we're taught it is in China,'' she says.

Source: Brisbane Times