Name: How Are British English and American English Different?
Uploaded: 2018-09-21T21:01:10.000Z
Duration: 11 min 49 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Welcome to the Langfocus channel and my name is Paul.

Future continuous

Today we'll be answering the question “How are British English and American English Different?”

- one of the most commonly asked questions by learners of English.

And hopefully native speakers of English will learn a thing or two from this video as well.

The truth is that both British and American English have numerous varieties, in other

words various accents and dialects, so in (the main part of) this video I will try to

focus on the most standard, non-regional variety of each one.

Disclaimer: I'm not American, I'm Canadian.

But I'm confident that we will someday be Americans after the invasion.

Standard Canadian English is very very close to General American English, so I will say

the American examples myself, unless there's some specific need to distinguish American pronunciation

There are several ways in which Britain English and the American English different: vocabulary,

In the US, people generally say “garbash” or “trash”, while in the UK they generally

Americans “go on vacation”, while Brits “go on holidays”.

And this is also possible in American English.

In the US people rent “apartments”, while in the UK they rent “flats”.

In the US, if your apartment is at street level, then you live on the first floor, and

the person above you lives on the second floor.

In the UK, you live on the ground floor, and the person above you lives on the first floor.

If that person above you is unable or just too lazy to take the stairs, in the US they'd

When you're bored at home, in the US you might turn on the TV, while in the UK you would

When you step outside of your building to go for a walk, in the US you might walk on

the sidewalk, while in the UK you walk on the pavement.

And if you're tired of walking, in the US you might take the subway.

In the US, it's perfectly to wear pants when you're riding the subway, but in the UK you'd

better wear some TROUSERS too because pants means underpants.

And specifically women's underpants are sometimes called knickers in the UK.

So when someone overreacts, in the US you might say “Don't get your panties in a bunch!”

In the UK you'd say “Don't get your knickers in a twist!”.

Now I can't show this video to my 6 year old students!

Don't worry, they'll watch it on their phones during recess.

Going back to the word “pants” for a moment, it can also be used in British English as

an adjective, meaning something is “crappy” or “it sucks”.

In American English, you might say “That album sucks”.

So I'll try to focus on General American English, and for the UK - Received Pronunciation.

These are the accents you're likely to hear on CNN and the BBC, respectively.

American English is rhotic, meaning that “r” sounds are always clearly pronounced.

British English is non-rhotic, meaning that the “r” sound is not pronounced unless

Notice that the final r sound is not pronounced in British English.

“Father” ends in a simple schwa vowel /ˈfɑː.ðə/.

And in “car” the a vowel sound is lengthened in place of the “r” sound.

Now, the thing about British non-rhotic dialects that I find pretty wild is something called

That means that people sometimes add an r-sound to a word that doesn't actually have one,

if it's followed by a vowel in the next word.

For example, in the sentence “I saw a film”.

In British English it sometimes sounds like this: “I saw'r a film”.

So you can hear that there's an “r” sound connecting “saw” and “a”.

I once had British on-the-job trainer, and she said “Hello my name is Paula and I'll

In British English (and again, I must emphasize that I'm talking about the accent referred

to as Received Pronunciation), t sounds are pronounced as hard Ts, in other words voiceless

In the US, they sometimes sound like /ɾ/ (an alveolar tap) instead of /t/ (an alveolar

This normally occurs in an unstressed syllable, between 2 vowel sounds, or between a vowel

and a rhotic sound (like an “r” sound).

In the US: Stop fighting! /stɑp ˈfʌɪɾɪŋ/.

In the UK: Stop fighting! /stɒp ˈfʌɪtɪŋ/.

You may have also noticed the “o” sound in the word “stop” was a little different,

In the word “stop”, the American “o” sound is an unrounded vowel /ɑ/ while the

Another example: US hot /hɑt/ UK: /hɒt/.

There is also the “o” diphthong in the word “know” US /noʊ/ (US).

In the UK: /nəʊ/ . In the UK the sound is a schwa followed by /ʊ/ as in “put”.