Transcription
Daughter, daughter. What? Try this one. Water, water. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Um, bottle, bottle. Oh God. Okay, no, never mind. Um, let's try something different, shall we? Let's try a full sentence. She bought her daughter a bottle of water. She bought her daughter a bottle of water.
Hey, do you speak British English or American English?
Not sure.
Well, don't worry, because in this video we're going to dive into the differences between them, looking at grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. And in order to help me with this video, I've got a special American guest. Please introduce yourself.
Hi, my name is Camille. I was born in Michigan in the United States, but I'm currently in Portugal. I am married, I have three beautiful children, and I'm an online English teacher.
Cheers, Camille!
So firstly, the main difference between American and British English is the vocabulary that we use. As you may have noticed, we often use different words to refer to the same thing. Here's a perfect example. What would you call these?
Oh, really? Well, in British English we would call them chips. Maybe you've heard of our national dish, fish and chips. Don't eat it. I wouldn't recommend that you eat it, but it's our national dish, so you have to respect it. Okay, so fish and chips. And in the USA they would call these fries. See, very different indeed.
Now, to make this interesting, we're going to turn this into a little challenge to find out which words you normally use, American or British. So each time there will be an image on the screen, and you will have a few seconds to shout out what you would normally call it in English. After, Camille will tell us what she would normally call it in her form of English, and of course I will then tell you what it is in British English. Anyway, are you ready, Camille?
I am ready. Let's go!
Chips. So in the UK we would call these crisps. It's a little bit hard to pronounce crisps. Got a lot of wh- crisping crisps. So I think that's why a lot of people prefer to say chips. They take the US version because the British version is a little bit hard to say. Now the tricky thing is that if you're in the UK and you ask someone if you use the American version of this word, you say chips, they will give you hot potato chips, like we saw in the other example, or fries in the US. So for us, chips are hot potatoes, and crisps are the ones that you find in a packet.
Garbage or garbage can? I kind of like rubbish for this one. It would be rubbish or rubbish bin. Rubbish, rubbish bin. Now, if you were to use the word garbage or garbage can, I think 99% of people would understand you, um, because there's so many TV series and films from the US that we watch on Netflix. There's so much influence with media from the US that most British people understand what garbage is, so there wouldn't be any confusion. So don't worry, you can use both.
Vacation. You know that since I'm in Europe and around so many people, I started saying holiday as well. Under the influence. That's how bad. Sound like I'm drinking. Holiday, holiday. I'm going on holiday. So for us, a holiday is basically somewhere you travel to, like when you go to the beach, you go on holiday. Right? I'm going on a holiday to Spain, or I'm going on a holiday to the mountains, the Alps in France. I think the only confusion might be for people in the US is that they use the word holiday to refer to national holidays like Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, which we don't have in the UK. Right? Don't forget that we don't have Thanksgiving. Okay, that's a US holiday, so that would be the only confusion for them. Some people might say vacation in the UK, but it's quite rare. Normally we say I'm going on holiday.
Truck. There's a truck going by right now.
Yes. Lori. Lori. Lori is the name of a girl in American English. I don't know about British English, but we use it. So this one might be a little bit tricky for some people from certain countries to say. I remember a lot of my students from Japan had some difficulty with the L and the A sound. So if you're from some countries in Asia, it might be a little bit easier to use the American version of this, this word, use truck, but in the UK we say lorry.
Cookie. Biscuit. This is a biscuit. Yeah. When I hear biscuit, I think of like dog biscuits. Don't give me any of those. We do have cookies. I think for us cookies are the bis- biscuits with chocolate chips. So they look a bit similar, but they have the chocolate chips in them, whereas biscuits for us normally are like digestives, or um, they just don't have that same look as a cookie. So we have cookies in the UK, but we consider them to be different things. So biscuits and cookies are different. Up. If you check out the photos here, you can hopefully see the difference between them.
Flashlight. Torch. I've never heard anyone in the UK say flashlight, so definitely use torch if you're in Wales, Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, maybe even in Australia as well. I think they just say torch. Canada and the US, I think they use flashlight. So torch. This is a torch.
Stroller. Pushchair or pram. Yeah. Pram feels like really sophisticated, I suppose. Pram is a little bit old-fashioned nowadays. Most people say pushchair, really, but you could use both.
Pacifier. Dummy. Dummy is not a very nice thing to call somebody. It means they're stupid. So that one's a pretty funny one.
I know. I know. I suppose in the US if you say you're a dummy, it means you're an idiot or you're stupid, but we don't really use that in the UK. We don't say you're a dummy. It sounds a bit weird. Sounds very American. So we would just say you're an idiot. So you can use dummy for the object that you put in a baby's mouth to make them stop crying.
Pants. Trousers. Again, you have to be really careful with this one in the UK, because in British English pants are underwear. So if you're talking about pants like, "Oh, your pants are so nice. I like your pants," it sounds weird. It sounds like you're talking about that underwear. So in the UK we say trousers, or maybe jeans, but normally trousers. So be careful. Don't say pants unless you want to refer to underwear.
Elevator. Lift. We do say like, "Can you give me a lift?" meaning "Can you bring me somewhere?" But yeah, we say elevator for the thing that goes up and down.
Yeah, that's true. Also in the UK you can say to someone, "Can you give me a lift?" meaning "Can you take me somewhere," "Can you give me a ride?" But we also use it for the thing that goes up and helps you to get to a floor that's very high up. I don't know, like the 13th floor or the 100th floor, whatever it could be. So we say, "I'm going to get the lift."
Of course, there are many, many more examples of words that are different in British English and American English, but we need to move on and look at pronunciation. But just before we do that, imagine having a conversation with a friend or a colleague at work and having the ability to receive feedback on your English proficiency. Well, that is what you can do with Pronounce. You can record your voice during live calls; the AI will review these dialogues, giving you valuable insights into your pronunciation, fluency, and word choice. It's like having a personal language tutor at your fingertips, making sure you're always right on track. Post-call, you will receive a comprehensive report highlighting the areas that you did well in, as well as those that you need to give a bit more attention to. This feedback from live conversations ensures that you're not just learning English in a controlled environment, but also mastering it in genuine everyday scenarios. For those with limited everyday English practice, Pronounce offers a chat with a native English speaker tailored to your preferences. You can choose from a variety of accents: British, American, Australian, or even Indian. This means that you're not only learning the language, but you also sound like a local and better understand a variety of accents. No more feeling out of place when you're chatting with different English speakers. But it's not just about accents; it's about having meaningful conversations. Pronounce covers a wide range of topics, from music and shopping to interviews and climate change. And if there's something specific on your mind that you want to talk about, just type it in to Pronounce, and they will help you to talk about it. The more you use Pronounce, the smarter it becomes. It learns your unique speaking habits and keeps a log of words that you often use, as well as any pronunciation mistakes you often make. Click the link below to check your speech for free now.
Let's jump into the differences between British and American pronunciation. The letter R is quite a good place to start. When the letter R is at the beginning or in the middle of of a word, there's little to no difference between the way that Brits and Americans say it. Listen to myself and Camille say these four words: rain, rain; brain, brain; berry, berry; spring, spring. But when do you Brits drop the R? Well, if the R is in the middle position in a one-syllable word and after a vowel, we tend to omit the R sound. We also don't tend to pronounce the R word if it's at the end of a word. Yeah, in American English we don't do that. We pronounce the R in these cases. Barn, teacher. Let's have a listen again. Camille will say them first, and then I will say them after. Learn, learn; father, father; work, work; germ, germ; turn, turn; harbor, harbor.
Let's now have a look at the letter T. In standard BrE, the letter T is always pronounced as T. This could be at the beginning of a word like television, in the middle of a word like attain, or at the end of a word like cut. However, here in the US we usually change the T to a soft D when it's between two vowels, Saturday, or between a vowel and an R like party. Listen carefully to these other examples with a soft D in American English and a standard T in British English. Better, better; water, water; matter, matter; pretty, pretty; city, city; hotter, hotter. And finally, the letter T is sometimes dropped by Americans when it comes after the letter N, for example, in British English we would say center, interview, internet; in American English, center, interview, internet.
Now let's talk about stress. Yes, even the stress in words can be different between American English and British English. There is a tendency for loan words, often from French, to be stressed on the first syllable by Brits, whereas Americans put the stress on the second syllable. For example, adult, adult; ballet, ballet; brochure, brochure; garage, garage; vaccine, vaccine; buffet, buffet; detail, detail.
And finally, grammar time. In British English, the present perfect tense is often favored when talking about actions or events in the past but have a connection with the present. In contrast, American English tends to use the past simple tense more frequently for such situations. For example, in the US we would would normally say, "I ate way too much food," and in the UK we would say, "I have eaten way too much food." American English: "I went to the store." British English: "I have been to the shop." Now another slight difference with grammar that confuses a lot of students is the usage of prepositions. If we talk about the weekend, in the UK we would say, "I'm going to a party at the weekend." That's interesting, because in American English we would say, "I'm going to a party on the weekend." For example, we would say, "I work Monday to Friday." How would you say in the US, Camille?
I work Monday through Friday.
Oh yeah. One final thing: the verb get. In the UK we conjugate this verb as get for the base form, got for the past simple, and got again for the past participle. And in the US we would conjugate it as get, got, gotten.
Okay, so that's everything for this video. I hope you have a better understanding about the differences between American English and British English. And remember, whether you use British English or American English, most people will still understand you. It's all about communicating and expressing yourself. If you want to continue practicing your English, check out this video. Click this video, click it, go! Don't forget to smash the like button, and I'll see you next time.