Leicester is home to students from all over the country, and many from all over the world, too.

Some of the international students are here for just a semester, others are around for the full three year experience.

And English slang can be a minefield to understand.

Hamza Kamran

Hamza is Pakistani by identity, and a third year studying Media and Communications at Leicester.

Hamza says: “I guess the first phrase that really confused me was everyone greeting me by asking me if I’m ‘arite’.

“Might have spent a fair bit of time in front of the mirror that first week of uni.”

Aehshaan Burah

“The whole underwear-pants, crisps-chips, chips-fries conundrum was hard to grasp at first but I suppose I was able to distinguish what the other party meant whenever they used a particular term.

“But I refuse to change my own vocabulary because I believe it is far better when asked ‘would you like fries with that?’ rather than ‘would you like chips with that?’”

Alexander Guian-Illanes

Alexander is originally from France and is currently in his final year of a Media and Communications degree.

He says he was confused by: “stuff like ‘pavement’, not sidewalk. ‘Peng’ and ‘piff’ for sweet. Candy is ‘sweets’ here, so weird.”

Magdalena Anna Zarzycka

Magdalena is from Poland and is in her third year studying Psychology and Sociology at Leicester.

“For the first couple of weeks I had to work hard to learn the difference between gasoline and petrol. Also because I made friends with American exchange students during the international week, I didn’t get used to the proper pronunciations of ‘tomato’, ‘vase’ and got funny looks when accidently said one of them wrong.”

“I still laugh a little when people say ‘are you alright?’ instead of just ‘hi’ when I bump into them walking down the street. Of course I’m alright, I’m just on my way to a lecture, what’s wrong with that?”

Jude Jweihan

Jude is Jordanian and is currently in her final year studying Media and Communications.

“I say bathroom, the British say toilet. I say underwear, they say knickers.

“I say dude and they say mate, and mate for me is when two living creatures mate together.

Marc Auriault

Marc is an ex-student from the Leicester who is currently applying for a Masters in Finance at University of Strathclyde. He was visiting Leicester to meet up with a friend.

Marc says: “When I say ‘pants’, I usually refer it to trousers. But apparently, ‘pants’ means underwear in the UK.

“That was awkward when I used the term ‘pants’ loudly and freely in conversation.”

Carina (Moyang Li)

Carina is a Media third year who does not like it when you don’t say thank you properly.

Carina says she was confused by English people always saying cheers. “Before I came from China, I normally just said thank you.”

Reshma Gurung

Reshma is a Geography second year and originally hails from Nepal.

Reshma says: “I came to England when I was in year 7 and back then I found English slang like ‘shank’ so weird.

“Also, you know how the British call potato chips crisps and French fries chips? That had me confused because I grew up calling crisps chips and chips fries.”

Christina Hannes

Christina is and Austrian who studies Media and Sociology. She is in her final year at the University of Leicester.

“I had no idea what “lad”meant before I came here. And I didn’t understand the whole idea behind lad culture.”