Differences between British and American English

                                                                                                                             
                        Oscar Wilde said, “We have really                          everything in common with America nowadays, 

                except,of course,the language”. 

Hi! Dear pupils, sometimes we have talked about the differences between the British English and the American words. It may be a bit confusing because there is an amazing variety of spelling, meaning, pronunciation, grammmar, punctuation in the English language between British and American speakers. You can even come across some differences in dates and numbers.

British English is the language spoken in the United Kingdom

American English is the language spoken in the United States


Here you come see some example:

In pronunciation, the word tomato is pronounced in BrE  /tₔ’mᵅ:tᵊᶸ/ and in AmE   /tₔ’mᵉᵢtᵊᶸ/

In meaning, the word mean in BrE is “not generous” and in AmE is “angry”.

In grammar, BrE uses “Have you got a car?" And AmE uses "Do you have a car?

In spelling, in BrE you’ll see “favourite”, “colour” and in AmE you’ll see “favorite” and “color”

In prepositions, in BrE they use “At the weekend” and in AmE they use “On the weend”

In dates, in BrE they say “25 December, 2012” and in AmE they say “December 25, 2012”

In vocabulary, you can see these words:

In British English	In American English
You wear trousers	You wear pants
You have crisps	You have chips
You have chips	You have French fries
You have fizzy drinks	You have soda
You take a lift	You take an elevator
You watch a film	You watch a movie
You walk on the pavement	You walk on the sidewalk

Watch the video below and if you'd like more information, check out this page or visit Woodlands Junior site
Finally you can check if you have learnt the main differences doing  activity 1 and activity 2