image: TitleProject Britain

Your Guide to
British Life, Culture and Customs

 
 
Follow me on Twitter :
British life and culture - England, Scotland and Wales
Why do Americans speak differently than the British?
Woodlands Junior School is in the south-east corner of England

"The Americans are identical to the British in all respects except, of course, language." Oscar Wilde

"We (the British and Americans) are two countries separated by a common language." G.B. Shaw

English spoken in the different countries has evolved over time.

Accents - how you say it

Accents play a part in the different ways people speak English around the world. Generally, an accent difference uses the same words for things, but pronounces them differently. Americans have accent differences in different regions such as the South, Boston or New York and so do the British from region to region.
Click here to read more

Dialect - the words you use

In British English, not only do we pronounce the same words differently (accent), we also use different words for the same things making it more a difference in dialect.

For example:

Don't comment on British pants!

"pants" usually referred to underwear in the UK - not trousers.

American, Canadian, Australian and the British use a lot of the same words . . . but they say them differently and/or the words have different meanings.

Australian English sounds like the British English accent to most Americans, but Australians have added aborigine words to the language which constitute a dialect difference.

Culture

Culture has an effect on language too. Cultural differences give rise to different vocabulary, phrases and different developments in grammar. America and Britain have very different cultures.

What differences are there between British English and American English? 

American and British Spellings

back to the topLearn about England and the other countries in Britain
from the children who live in ther


© Copyright - please read
All the materials on these pages are free for educational use only. You may not redistribute, sell or place the content of this page on any other website or blog without written permission from Mandy Barrow, Woodlands Junior School.

© Copyright 2011 Mandy Barrow
Woodlands Junior School, Hunt Road Tonbridge Kent TN10 4BB UK