British English vs American English
- 1. Moon-jung, Choi Jin-tae, Kim American English vs. British English
- 2. Contents Grammar Vocabulary Spelling Pronunciation 1 2 3 4
- 3. Vocabulary Education Transport/Transportation Politics Levels of buildings Dates Weight Greetings Equivalent idioms
- 4. Education
- 5. Education University BrE "She read biology at Cambridge." "She studied biology at Cambridge." "She did biology at Cambridge." (informal) AmE "She majored in biology at Harvard." "She studied biology at Harvard.“ "She concentrated in biology at Harvard."
- 6. Education General terms BrE: "I sat my Spanish exam yesterday." "I plan to set a difficult exam for my students, but I don't have it ready yet." AmE: "I took my exams at Yale." "I spent the entire day yesterday writing the exam. I'm almost ready to give it to my students."
- 7. Transport/Transportation American English British English Transportation Transport Drunk driving Drink driving driving while intoxicated & driving under the influence of alcohol drunk in charge of a motor vehicle & driving with excess alcohol
- 9. Politic Levels of buildings Politic stand for election (BrE) run for office(AmE) Levels of Buildings Ground Floor & First Floor (BrE) First Floor & Second Floor (AmE)
- 10. Dates/ Weight Dates Christmas Day 2000 25/12/00 (BrE) Vs 12/25/00 (AmE) 06/04/05 Weight 11 stone 4 (11 stones and 4 pounds–BrE) 158 pounds (AmE)
- 11. Greetings/ Equivalent idioms Greetings Merry Christmas (AmE) Happy Christmas (BrE) Equivalent idioms sweep under the carpet(BrE) sweep under the rug(AmE) see the wood for the trees(BrE) see the forest for the trees(BrE)
- 12. Spelling Noah Webster -our (BrE) -> -or(AmE) colour -> color labour -> labor honour -> honor -re (BrE) -> -er(AmE) centre -> center theatre -> theater
- 13. Spelling -ise (BrE) -> -ize(AmE) realise -> realize -ce (BrE) -> -se (AmE) defence -> defense Etc. Cheque -> check Catalogue -> catalog
- 14. Grammar Nouns British : collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb form. American : collective nouns are usually singular in construction. Ex1. a committee was appointed. (AmE, BrE) the committee were unable to agree. (BrE) Ex2. Spain are the champions. (BrE) Spain is the champion. (AmE)
- 15. Grammar Verbs - Verb morphology British American Present Past Past participle saw sawed sawn get got got dream dreamt dreamt Present Past Past participle saw sawed sawed get got gotten dream dreamed dreamed
- 16. Grammar Verbs - Use of tenses BrE uses the present perfect to talk about an event in the recent past and with the words already , just and yet. In American usage these meanings can be expressed with the present perfect or the simple past. Ex1. BrE : Have you cleaned your teeth? AmE : Did you clean your teeth? Ex2. BrE : I've just got home. AmE : I just got home.
- 17. Grammar Presence or absence of syntactic elements 1. AmE : go + bare infinitive BrE : go and + bare infinitive Ex. AmE : I'll go take a bath. BrE : I'll go and have a bath. 2. AmE : come + bare infinitive BrE : come and + bare infinitive Ex. AmE : come see what I bought. BrE : come and see what I've bought.
- 18. Grammar Prepositions American English British English Play on a team Play in a team On Churchill street In Churchill street I'll talk with/to him I'll talk to him Affiliate with Affiliate with/to Different from/than Different from/to
- 19. Grammar Miscellaneous grammatical differences 1. In names of American rivers the word river usually comes after the name whereas for British rivers it comes before. Ex. Colorado River (AmE) River Thames (BrE) 2. In BrE speech, titles may precede names but not descriptions of offices, both normally precede names in AmE. Ex. President Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister (BrE) President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill (AmE)
- 20. Grammar Miscellaneous grammatical differences 3. AmE freely adds the suffix -s to day , night , evening , weekend , Monday , etc. to form adverbs denoting repeated or customary action. 4. Singular attributives in one country may be plural in the other, and vice versa . American English British English Drug problem Drugs problem Sports section Sport section Math Maths
- 21. Pronunciation
- 22. Pronunciation Sound /r/ British English (Received Pronunciation) vowel+ /r/ : /r/ disappeared Ex. Bird, first, far, car Sound /t/ American English /t/ + unstressed syllable : /t/ -> /d/ Ex. butter -> budder united -> unided latter -> ladder
- 23. Pronunciation
- 24. Thank You!