the difference between british and american english

Differences on Pronunciation of Common Words

Between American & British English

Now, both America and Britain people are use English, but as we know, the English they use is

different from each other in pronunciation, spelling and any other aspects. So we separate the

English into American English and British English. American English and British English are the

same in many aspects, but they also have many differences in details. It is a hard work to

distinguish all the differences between them. In this essay, I want to distinguish the differences on

pronunciation of common words between American English and British English.

As students we are, we always use British English as the common one, and we always think

that we use the native British pronunciation in speaking English in our daily communication. But, I

want to say that, as American English and British English have many similarities and also have

many fine distinctions, we always can’t distinguish them exactly. So, we can see some examples

that students say both American English and British English in a sentence but they don’t realize.

The mixture of American pronunciation and British pronunciation is commonly seen in our daily

communication and that makes the pronunciation not be native. So in my opinion, distinguish the

differences on pronunciation of common words between American and British English clearly is

very important. Through recognize their own characters of pronunciation, we can know them better

and use them better and more exactly.

Now, let us start to make a distinction between their different pronunciations. As for the

phoneme, there are two questions between American English and British English’s pronunciations.

One is that the same phoneme has differences in allophonic transcription between American English

and British English; the other is that American English and British English use different phoneme in

the same word, i.e. the differences on pronunciation.

1. British people always pronounce with clear articulation and a mellow and full tune, but

American people’s mouths are often wide open and their pronunciation is a little flatter and leaning

forward. That is one of the most common differences between American English and British

English. For example, [ɑ], [ɑ:] and [æ], these three phonetic symbols have different use in the same

word between American English and British English. British people pronounce [ɑ] or [ɑ:] in a word,

but American people pronounce [æ]. As for the simple word ask, in British English, its phonetic

symbol is [ɑ:sk], but in American English, the phonetic symbol become [æsk]. When British people

pronounce this word, their pronunciation is leaning backward, but American people’s pronunciation

is leaning forward, that is the different. There are also many examples that can explain this

difference. Under are other examples of different pronunciation between American English and

British English:

Words with ‘a’ followed by [f] [θ] [s] [nt] [ns] [ntʃ] [nd] [mp] (laugh, path, grass, plant, dance,

branch, demand, sample) have [æ] in American and [ɑ:] in southern British; i.e.

British English American English

laugh [lɑ:f] [læf]

path [pɑ:θ] [pæθ]

grass [ɡrɑ:s] [ɡræs]

plant [plɑ:nt] [plænt]

dance [dɑ:ns] [dæns]

branch [brɑ:ntʃ] [bræntʃ]

demand [di'mɑ:nd] [di'mænd] sample ['sɑ:mpl] ['sæmpl]

2. Sometimes we usually soften or don’t read the vowel (especially the [ə] or [i]) in the

unstressed syllable out in British English, while we should read all vowels out in the American

English. So it has been saying that British people often have the “eat vowel” phenomenon and that

American people speak English more slowly than British people (if the word’s suffix is tory or tary,

British English often pronounce [tri], while American English pronounce [təri]). For example,

British English American English

factory ['fæktri] ['fæktəri]

secretary ['sekrətri] ['sekrətəri]

dormitory ['dɔ:mitri] ['dɔ:mitəri]

history ['histri] ['histəri]

medicine ['medsin] ['medisin]

interest ['intrist] ['intərist]

victory ['viktri] ['viktəri]

3. There is another very important difference between British English and American English,

and this difference is obvious. When American people speak English, you can hear clearly that they

put ‘r’ in some words; we called that retroflex. Because British English sound pronunciation