What are the kids saying these days?

I sure don’t know the answer, being a bit aged myself, but I can tell you that trying to sound like a with-it kid when you’re not one is likely to fail. Kids are pretty good at spotting someone who doesn’t use the lingo in a natural way. Little things will give a person away even if the person knows the popular expressions.

@obvek I’m 28 and I still use both of those phrases, so kids today have probably moved on.

Now I feel old. Really old, daddy-o.

From observing my 8-year-old daughter and her friends, I can tell you…they’re all over the place. They mostly speak proper American English with certain exclamations thrown in (“Oh my gawd!”, “Meh.”, “Seriously?!”). There doesnt seem to be a lot of obvious slang that isn’t slang already engrained in the popular culture (“That’s cool”). Nothing too modern.

The TV show “iCarly” is a good example of this.

That being said, I agree with @Jeruba. It’s one thing, as an adult to be curious and observe these things, but to try and imitate it is just sad,sad, sad.

Just a few I can think of at the moment:

Bounce – to leave.
Chill – relax.
Chillaxin – cross between chilling and relaxing.
Hater or h8er – reference to someone that hates everything.
Sick or ill – cool or awesome.
Tight – close relationship.
Fo sheezy – for sure or yes.
Dope – cool.
Tope – cross between tight and dope.
Crunk – cross between crazy and drunk.
Broski – if you’re a male… your best male friend is your broski (like bro).
Bling – jewellry.
Balla – someone who flaunts money.
Home skillet – friend.
-izzle – adding izzle on the end of words, or replacing the end of a word with izzle, makes the word cool.

If you mean with American young people, then to Urban Dictionary with you, sir. Be aware that different groups of young people use different slang words.

Urban Dictionary is good for definitions as @aprilsimnel mentioned, but it’s also important to remember that anyone can add something. There is technically some screening process, but it’s all done by volunteers, and mostly focuses on adding hate speech (but slurs are ok) and not adding friends names (ie the definition of “Ryan” being “a totally awesome dude who will always have your back and loves nachos”). One of our jellies added a reference to his wayward youth, and while it’s definitely funny, it’d be a mistake to think that more than 3 people are really using that term.

I agree with @Jeruba that young people can always tell when you don’t really speak that way, and it’s better to simply treat them as equals than try to connect with them over something as trivial as slang. Kids who are 8 are going to speak differently than 12 year olds, who speak differently than 15 year olds, who speak differently from 20 year olds. If you want to know what words a certain youngster says, watch the shows they watch and you’ll probably get a good idea.