Australia and New Zealand - what's the same and what's different?

FLAGS

Flag of Australia User DO'Neil on en.wikipedia

Flag of New Zealand

Let's start with the flags. Currently, in February 2025, both flags have a small Union Jack flag of Britain in the top left corner. Both have the four stars of the Southern Cross on the right.These stars are seen in the sky from both countries. But Australia's  flag's stars are white, with many points whilst New Zealand's have five points with white borders. Australia has an extra large white star on the lower. left. Like Texas, How do you remember which is which? Australia is bigger, more points and more stars.

LAND

Next lets look at the land masses. New Zealand has lots of islands. North Island. South Island. Little islands. The third most populated island, pretty, hilly Waiheke. The Bay of Islands. 

Australia is not considered an island but a continent. It's huge. Off the southern coast is Tasmania.

ANIMALS, BIRDS 

The wildlife, symbols and toys are different.

Australia has kangaroos and koala bears.

Australia has laughing kookaburras.

New Zealand has sheep. (also cows, goats,horses.)

New Zealand has and flightless kiwi birds, with long beaks. Also kias which attack car windscreen wipers at ski resorts.

FOOD

Pavlovas

Both countries feature pavolvas, large donut shape white hard meringues with a solid base in the middle supporting mixed fresh fruit. Both countries were visited by the by the British ballet dancer Pavlova and her troupe.

Australians use passionfruit. New Zealanders use green kiwi fruit.

Lamingtons

Both countries sell Lamingtons. Cubes of pale coloured sponge covered in a thin shell of brown chocolate covered in white shredded coconut.

Lamington in New Zealand. Photo by Angela Lansbury.  Copyright. 

ACCENT

Australians and New Zealanders speak English and can understand British English. 

Australians speak louder and you will recognize Australian if you think of Oss- try-lee -er.  The word today sound like to die. This can be unnerving when you are asked what you are intending to do to die.

New Zealanders speak quietly with their teeth closer together.

You can recognize the New Zealand accent if you think of asking a New Zealander a question and getting the answer yiss and hearing the number seven as siven..

NATIVE PEOPLE

Australia has Aboriginies. 

New Zealand has Maoris.

NATIVE LANGUAGES

Australian words you may recognize include

boomerang

Maori words you may recognize include 

kia ora. - greeting familiar to visitors because it is used as a brand name for a drink

Drink to buy with Maori greeting as brand name.

. JEWELLERY SOUVENIRS

Australia has opal jewellery.Opal is the national gemstone. From Coober Pedy.

New Zealand has paoa shell jewellery.

Useful Websites

Australia

https://www.pmc.gov.au/honours-and-symbols/australian-national-symbols/australian-floral-emblem
New Zealand

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_symbols_of_New_Zealand

Holler about Wallaroo which translates photos of signs in obscure languages

 

You probably didn't know that a wallaroo was, and still is, an animal half way between a kangaroo and a - but although that is interesting piece of general language information, it is a side-track to this story. Google has chosen this name for its newly launched system for translating photos of obscure and endangered languages. 

Like Wikipedia, knowledgeable members of the public can imput their obscure knowledge. Is this safe? Accurate? Will nuisances and children imput nonsense? It is a self-correcting system. Like Google translate. 

What does this mean for you and me?

If you happen to be on holiday in an area with an obscure language and see a sign you can translate it. If you see a sign in three languages and the English translation is nonsense you can go back to the original.

If you want to learn an obscure language word by word, or ingratiate yourself with obliging local people, how handy. And finally, if you are really keen to preserve or learn an obscure language, a great valuable service for you and future generations. 

Okay, you may be wondering, is this just a general piece of information or does the writer of this post have an interest in it. If so, please declare your interest.

Mine is Yiddish. Yiddish, like English, was based on German. Like English, Yiddish had language imput from immigrants and invaders. I think of Yiddish as a friendly, funny version of German. Great for telling jokes, commenting on life, proverbs.

What use is it to anybody else? My son, (my husband insists I should say our son) got married last year. What do I call his in-laws? There's no word in English for them. Only a convoluted, 'my son's in-laws'. 'My sister-in-law' would be the wife of my brother. But Yiddish has a word for it. Machatunim. (I thought I had heard people in London, England say Machataynim.)

In Spanish the nearest word would be consuagos, with or co in-laws.

Are you still curious about the wallaroo animal mentioned earlier?

Wikipedia says:

Wallaroo is a common name for several species of moderately large macropods, intermediate in size between the kangaroos and the wallabies. The word "wallaroo" is from the Dharug walaru.^[2]

Wallaroos are typically distinct species from kangaroos and wallabees.

Now you can easily remember the name of the Google development, Wallaroo.

Now, I suppose, if you are interested in languages, like me, or have time to spare, or have time to spare, which I don't, but are easily distracted, which I am, you might have read this post a second time and wondered, just a minutes, what was that language which gave the word wallaroo?

It is indeed one of the languages likely to be lost unless somebody saves it. 

Usefully, the same wiki page tells us the meaning of another handy well-known word, koala. 

A Dharug speaking person from earlier times:

DHARUG words or derived words you will recognize

 

• Names of animals: 
• dingo, 
• koala, 
• kangaroo
• 
  
• wallaby and 
• wollaroo
• wombat

Useful Websites

translate google

Wikipedia Dharug

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharug_language

wiipedia Yiddish

Wikipedia Spanish

About the Author

About Angela The Author

The Author - Quick Quotations

Angela Lansbury B A Hons  is the author of ten books by regular publishers plus another ten self-published books. 

About Angela The Speaker & Trainer

Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages to Toastmasters clubs and businesses.

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Vice President  Public Relations, Immediate Past President.

Former Area Director S3. Club Coach for Nee Soon South Toastmasters Club.

Also Member of: TCA Toastmasters Club; Singapore Online Dynamic; Harrovians UK

The recent meeting of BHA included Garen Tee on using story telling in business, on bha.learncool.sg . Also an educational on using Powerpoint for posters.

Next BHA meetings, 

1 Wednesday evening, May 55th, 7 pm Singapore. 

After Vesak day and Hari Raya: 

2 Next meetings 1st Wednesday evening and 

3 Third Saturday afternoon, Singapore time.  

Special speech with slides about teamwork in sport and Toastmasters International and life, by the President of West Coast Toastmasters Club who often help BHA with workshops and invite us to give speeches at their club.

Inauguration of new committee by incoming Area Director of S

About Angela The Blogger 

Angela has several blogs on speeches, comedy and song writing and organizing, writing intermittently, but writes almost daily on these three:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

See next post on sculptor Tom Harvey.

Please share links to your favourite posts. 

Exciting Environmentally Friendly Eco Crossings For Animals

US flag.

I read that California is building the largest wildlife crossing in the world. Very worthy and worthwhile.

It will cross the highway at Los Angeles and they hope it will help lions. Lions! What? Never mind helping the lions. If the powers that be can divert lions off the highway, I am all in favour of it.

The first one I saw was in Singapore.


Singapore flag.


Jnzl's Photos - Eco-link @ BKE, Singapore, from Wikipedia.

In Singapore riding along the motorway in a taxi or a grab cab you often see the Eco bridge.It helps the animals cross from the Bukit Timah nature reserve. Bukit is the Malay word for hill and Timah means tin, tin mine hill, a major landmark.

I thought it would be interesting to take a walk along the bridge but you cannot. The bridge is closed to pedestrians. Many animals smelling human scent would keep away, defeating the purpose of the bridge.

What is the bridge for? To divert animals away from dangerous roads where they become roadkill. To enable them to link up (not kink up, which auto correct prefers) from one area to another, so that animals are not interbreeding with their own relative in a small area, but can roam around to meet others, which encourages breeding and creates biodiversity.


Squirrel Bridges

Squirrel bridges are in the UK in England and Scotland, in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany and the USA. A simple rope bridge is relatively cheap to build. It could be protecting the red squirrels or the greys, whichever is your native species most in need of help.

AUSTRALIA
Australia has bridges used by koalas and kangaroos.

SINGAPORE
The cameras have caught three kinds of bat. And pangolins.

UK
In the UK crossings or under tunnels have been built for specific animals which have a route across what is now a motorway. Hedgehogs. Toads.

ELSEWHERE
Camel crossing in Kuwait. Yup. It must be easier to spot a camel crossing than some of those smaller creatures.

Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_crossing

USA
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/california-will-build-largest-wildlife-crossing-world-
Great video on the Singapore eco bridge shows the animals which have been captured on camera.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w82a1FT5o88
visitbritain.com
visittheusa.co.uk
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/green-bridges-safer-travel-for-wildlife

About the author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.