Teach English in Xinchang Zhen - Bazhong Shi

One of the very common questions asked by students is how British English is different from American English? There is an old saying that America and Britain are “two nations divided by a common language. No one knows exactly who said this, but it reflects the way many Brits feel about American English I often tell my American friends that they don’t speak English, they speak American. I will elaborate a few main differences between British English and American English. One of the main differences between British and American English is vocabulary. For example, American people would say they live in apartments whereas British people would use the word flats instead. Another example of this is that the British people call the front of the car ‘bonnet’ but the Americans call it the ‘hood’. Americans say vacation, while Brits say holidays or hols. British people say lift, while Americans describe it as an elevator. These are only a few of many examples of differences in vocabulary. There are a few grammatical differences between the two varieties of English. Let’s start with collective nouns. We use collective nouns to refer to a group of individuals. In the American form of English, collective nouns are singular. For example, staff refers to a group of employees; the band refers to a group of musicians; the team refers to a group of athletes. Americans would say, “The band is good.” But in British form of English, collective nouns can be singular or plural. You might hear someone from Britain say, “The team are playing tonight” or “The team is playing tonight.” Another grammar difference between American and British English relates to auxiliary verbs. Auxiliary verbs, also known as helping verbs. Let’s look at the auxiliary verb shall. Brits sometimes use 'shall" to express the future. For example, “I shall go home now.” Americans know what shall means, but rarely use it in conversation. It seems very formal. Americans would probably use “I will go home now.” In question form, a Brit might say, “Shall we go now?” while an American would probably say, “Should we go now?” You will also find some small differences with past forms of irregular verbs. The past tense of "learn" in American English is learned. British English has the option of learned or learnt. The same rule applies to dreamed and dreamt, burned and burnt, leaned and leant. Americans tend to use the –ed ending; Brits tend to use the -t ending. In the past participle form, Americans tend to use the –en ending for some irregular verbs. For example, an American might say, “I have never gotten caught” whereas a Brit would say, “I have never got caught.” Americans use both got and gotten in the past participle. Brits only use got. Another difference between British English and American English is the way they spell different words, for example, British people would spell these words as ‘colour, honour, labour’ whereas American people would spell them as ‘color, honor, labor’. The idea of having different spellings was of an American author, who was also a teacher and a politician. He started to change English spellings in the late 1700s. He disliked the inconsistencies in the British spellings and wanted to change the spellings of the words as they sounded, for example, he made a proposal to spell ‘women’ as ‘wimmen’ but this idea was rejected. British and American English have far more similarities than differences. We think the difference between American and British English is often overemphasized. If you can understand one style you will be able to understand others easily with the exception of some local dialect, which is different in different styles of English. If you understand one style you can watch movies, read books without any hassle to know if the Author or Language use is American Based or British. Refrence:https://learningenglish.voanews.com