Differences between British and American English
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(1) VOCABULARY
The most noticeable difference between American and British English is vocabulary. There are hundreds of everyday words that are different. For example: apartment (US) and flat (UK), college (US) and university (UK), vacation (US) and holiday (UK), etc.
(2) PRESENTS PERFECT AND PAST SIMPLE
In British English, people use the Present Perfect to speak about a past action that they consider relevant to the present. The Present Perfect can be used in the same way in American English, but people often use the Past Simple when they consider the action finished. This is especially common with the adverbs already, just and yet.
(3) TAG QUESTIONS
A tag question is a grammatical form that turns a statement into a question. For example, “The whole situation is unfortunate, isn’t it?” or, “You don’t like him, do you?” The tag includes a pronoun and its matching form of the verb be, have or do. Tag questions encourage people to respond and agree with the speaker. Americans use tag questions, too, but less often than Brits.
(4) GOT AND GOTTEN
In British English, the past participle of the verb get is got. In American English, people say gotten. Note that have got is commonly used in both British and American English to speak about possession or necessity. have gotten is not correct here.
(5) COLLECTIVE NOUNS
We use collective nouns to refer to a group of individuals.
In American English, collective nouns are singular. In British English, collective nouns can be singular or plural.
(6) HAVE AND TAKE
In British English, the verbs "have" and "take" are commonly used with nouns like "bath", "shower", "wash" to speak about washing and with nouns like "break", "holiday", "rest" to speak about resting. In American English, only the verb "take" (and not the verb "have") is used this way.
(7) AUXILIARY VERB
Another grammar difference between American and British English relates to auxiliary verbs. Auxiliary verbs, also known as helping verbs, are verbs that help form a grammatical function. They “help” the main verb by adding information about time, modality and voice.
In question form, a Brit might say, “Shall we go now?” while an American would probably say, “Should we go now?”
(8) SPELLING
Since spelling is connected to writing, you’ll only notice these differences if you’re reading or writing English. These words are generally pronounced exactly the same.
For example, words like “colour,” “flavour,” “favour,” “favourite” and “neighbour” have an “-our” at the end in British English. In American English, there’s no “u.”
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Time codes:
0:00 Which version of English you should learn
1:45 Americans live in apartments and Brits live in flats. Why?
3:32 About Lingoda Team Challenge
6:16 Present Perfect in the US and in the UK
6:55 My favorite difference
7:36 Got vs. gotten
8:28 One of the most confusing differences
9:23 Do you have or take a break?
10:00 Shall vs. should
11:19 Color or colour? Which one is correct?
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