In this episode I explain how to use the expressions “no worries” and “no wukkas”, as well as other similar expressions common in Aussie English.

Download the episode PDF transcript here.

Ep042: Expression – No Worries & No Wukkas

G’day guys and welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today I’m going to talk to you about an expression “no worries” or “no wukkas”. So “no worries” or “no wukkas”. Now “to worry” means to feel uneasy or concerned about something. So to be troubled by something. If you’re worried it means that you’re anxious, you know, you’re incredibly worried about something. It means “oh my gosh, like oh you know, I’m so anxious, I’m so concerned. I’m scared something bad’s happened.” And that’s the verb “to worry” about something, or to be worried by something. And then the noun “a worry” or “a worry” is the state of being anxious. So, if you have “a worry” it means that you are, you are worried about something, you know. To use the verb to explain the noun. So “a worry” is to be anxious, to be troubled, over something that may or may not really be a problem. Other ways of saying “no worries” or “no wukkas” in probably American English and the UK English that are more common, and that can be used in Australian English, are the phrases:

“No problem”

“You’re welcome”

“Forget about it”

“Any time”

How would I use these phrases? So, “no problem” is the kind of phrase that I would use when someone has said thanks for something, and I don’t think it’s a big deal. It wasn’t a problem. So I would say “nah no problem”.

“You’re welcome” again is another way of me saying to someone who’s thanking me that “it’s not a problem. Don’t worry about it.” I can say “you’re welcome”, “you are welcome”.

If I really want to brush it off, and to brush means to… (the sound of brushing), like that, wipe something off of you. If I brush something off figuratively it means I don’t think it’s a big deal. I’m saying “nah nah nah nah, don’t worry about it, forget about it“. So if I use the term “to forget about it”. If I say to someone “ah forget about it”. It’s me saying “you’re welcome, don’t worry about it, it’s not a problem, it was, you know, I would do this for you any time, don’t worry about it.”

And that leads us to the last one where you would say, you know, someone’s said to you thank you for doing this for me. I could say “nah, any time“, which means “I would do this any time”, you know, “it’s not a problem. You’re welcome. Forget about it. For you I would do this any time.” So, “any time mate. Any time.”

So, “no worries” has been very very common in Australian English for a long time, and “no wukkas” at least as far as I know, and have experienced personally, has become much more prevalent, much more common, it’s been said a lot more often in Australian English, probably in the last 10 years. So I remember hearing this for the first time I think in university when I had first started university, and this was about 10 years ago, 10 years before now, maybe 2006, 2007. And I remember someone saying to me after obviously I had done something for that person. They said to me “no wukkas” and I remember thinking “no wukkas? no wukkas? What the hell is no wukkas? What does that mean?” and it was the first time that I’d heard this expression. So since then though it has become a lot more common even though it’s… it’s sort of a non-expression, it’s not unique, it’s just we’ve taken the word “worries” and we’ve given it a different sound “wukkas”. It’s almost like we turned “worry” into “wuk”

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