"You Alright?"

(Switzerland Part 4 will be coming soon!)

I've adjusted to the differences in language here without much trouble, and (believe it or not) there are a lot of differences between Standard British English and Standard American English.

Many of them we hear (and even joke) about,

chips = french fries
prawns = shrimp
zebra crossing = crosswalk
flat = apartment

I have adopted "cheers" and "queue" (among others) into my regular vocab. They're just used so often here it's impossible not to!

One that took a while to get used to was "stay in or take away?" You don't realize how used to "for here or to go?" you are until someone in food service asks a different question. As usual, the Brits thought of a more elegant way to say the same thing.

However, there is ONE difference that throws me every single time, even after a few months:

"You alright?"

Seems like a simple enough question, right? But it's one we use in the U.S. when something appears to be wrong. If someone just came up to you in a normal setting and asked, "you alright?" You'd probably wonder why and say, "Yes...? I'm fine."

Here it is used in place of "how are you?" or "what's up?" which means ALL THE TIME. And, let me tell you, it trips me up each and every time. I still haven't figured out the proper answer. "Yes" seems inadequate, but it is also a yes or no question.

My answer usually starts out with "uhh.."