Differences between American English

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Differences between American English & British English

Juanita

English is the official language and widely used in both Britain and America.

The British spread English all over the world through its colonization activities.

English was divided into AE and BE on its evolutional stage. Both AE and BE are

Standard English, but as we all know, there still are many differences between them.

In order to distinguish these two kinds of English, I seek help from the textbook

and the Internet, and find out some useful information about this topic. Here are some

ways that they differ from each other.

1. Pronunciation.

In many words end with -ary, -ory and two-syllable words end with -ate, the

American English stress on the first syllable, and the British English accent on the

second syllable, e.g. 'ancillary/an'cillary, 'laboratory/la'boratory, 'migrate/mi 'grate, etc.

2. Vocabulary.

The same word shows different meanings, e.g. billion (十亿/万亿), biscuit (软饼/苏打饼干), football (橄榄球/足球), mall (购物中心/林荫大道), overall (工装裤/紧身裤), etc.

The same meaning is showed by different words. E.g. baggage/luggage(行李),

can/tin(罐头), candy/sweets(糖果), elevator/lift(电梯), subway/underground(地铁),

truck/lorry(卡车), welfare /benefit(福利) , etc.

Differ in spelling but the same in pronunciation. E.g. analyze/analyse(分析),

center/centre(中心), defense/defence(保卫), dialog/dialogue(对话),

inflection/inflexion(弯曲), instal/install(安装), kilogram/kilogramme(公斤), labor/

labour(劳动) , etc.

3. Grammar.

It is said on the Internet that AE like to use the past tense, while BE like to use the

present perfect tense when provide information, e.g. He just went home. /He has just

gone home. (他刚回家了。), I just have lunch. /I have just had lunch. (我刚吃完午餐。), etc. Besides, words like “need, dare, used to” are all used as notional verb in AE,

and modal verb in BE, e.g. She didn’t dare to stay in the dark. /She dared not stay in

the dark. (她不敢呆在黑暗的地方。), Tom doesn’t need to go with them. /Tom

needn’t go with them. (汤姆不需要和他们一起去。), etc.

Knowing the knowledge above will help us a lot when we communicate with the

native speakers from American and British. For those people who is more familiar

with AE than BE, when they communicate with a BE speaker, they may get the point

as they know the knowledge of differences between AE and BE.