This article was first published in January 2023.
Growing up in Aotearoa equips Kiwis with a dictionary filled with slang terms only a fellow New Zealander would understand.
'Sweet', 'mate' and 'all good' make up some of our favourite expressions - it's hard to think if you told someone overseas something was "sweet as" it'd be received with a blank stare.
Whether you're out in the 'wop-wops' or a 'jafa' in the 'big smoke' it's guaranteed your 'yarn' is 'chocka' with endearing New Zealand lingo.
While second nature to New Zealanders, our charming local slang can leave visitors 'packing a sad'.
To the rest of the world, we seem very similar to our Australian neighbours - some people even think we are the same country - but even our 'cuzzies' across the ditch are stumped by our "Kiwi speak".
Australian TV personality David Astle spent three weeks in the South Island and found himself stumped by "Aotearoa's linguistic fault lines".
"Afghans are biscuits, for instance, rather than Kabul residents, or silken-haired dogs. Trumpets are Cornettos. Countdown is Woollies," Astle wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald.
"Meanwhile drag-racing has a confusing synonym in NZ."
The broadcaster was perplexed that a bach was a beach house in Blenheim, not a famous German composer or a dairy was a small grocery shop.
Who's going to tell him that a 'scarfie' is not a scarf, a 'thong' has a different meaning to Kiwis and it's a 'chilly bin', not an esky.
Astle wrote that there while strolling through Christchurch's earthquake museum, he stumbled across a couple Danes searching their English dictionaries for the word "munted".
"No matter how fluent your English, a place like New Zealand will stump you," Astle wrote.
"How can I speak English, you wonder, yet not this English? Is this a dialect or a practical joke? Or maybe my dictionary is seriously munted."
