What is the difference between British and American English?

It seems that a maxim stating an obvious fact "in America they speak English" already at the end of the 20th century began to sound doubtful even for non-specialists. With the fall of the Iron Curtain, the number of people who mastered the English language on a practical basis increased incrementally. There is an opportunity to learn English without leaving not only the country, but also your own apartment - with the help of movies, books, periodicals and, finally, the Internet.

American English is more than a dialect

And it turned out that formally the same English is spoken very differently in the United States and Great Britain. The differences relate to almost all aspects of language use, from pronunciation to paperwork. Any language spoken by millions of people has local characteristics, but usually these features affect only a couple of aspects: somewhere the meanings of words differ, somewhere the same words are pronounced differently. But in general, the basis of the language remains the same, and you can understand the differences without additional training.

The differences between American and British English have already gone far enough, and this trend continues. And this process is natural - English in the United States is under serious pressure from other dialects. And the policy of tolerance towards minorities leads to the fact that even American English is losing its position, increasingly moving away from the British version of the once common language.

Main differences

Everything is relative, including the differences between British and American English. More or less serious gradations exist only between people who have received at least some formal education. Residents of African-American or Chinese neighborhoods will realize that this "white man" does not speak like others, but it will not go further than the hypothesis of a newcomer from Idaho.

Pronunciation

More or less trained people in the United States recognize an Englishman (and vice versa), primarily by pronunciation. In general, the speech of Americans is more abrupt, and the pronunciation of the British is distinguished by a smoothness, which is sometimes even called "roundness". By ear, this difference looks like a conversation between an ill-mannered (American English) person and a polite aristocrat (British English). In addition, more specific features are highlighted:

1. "Growl"

Americans use the sound [r] more often than their former compatriots. This is especially true for words ending with the letter "r". The British pronounce it only if the next word begins with a vowel sound, the Americans always do.

2. Nasal twang

So-called nasal pronunciation. There are a lot of nasal sounds in the British version of English, but it feels like Americans are trying to make all consonant sounds nasal. This desire for nasalization is very clearly expressed in the pronunciation of the word "new". If the British sounds a smooth [nju:], the American will sound [nu:].

3. Short sounds

The characteristic English short sounds gradually disappear from the speech of Americans. First of all, this applies to the short [o]. Americans randomly replace it with either a short "a" [ʌ], and then the word "hot" turns into [hʌt] - "hut". Either a short sound turns into a long one. As a result, the well-known word "dog" sounds variously on different shores of the Atlantic.

Vocabulary

Examples of divergence of lexical meanings of identical words or the use of different words to refer to the same concepts are not counted. The example of the most popular game is known even to people who are far from philology: in America they play soccer, in Britain they play football. Here are a few more typical examples:

Other differences

There are differences in other aspects of the language. In particular, many people can observe differences in the spelling of "color" - "colour" and "program" - "programme" embedded in the Microsoft Word text editor, in which Word gives priority to the American version, emphasizing in red the "wrong" British one. The grammar of the American English is simpler. It is given preference to the Present Perfect before the Past Simple. In addition, the predicate agrees more rigidly with the subject. However, these details are likely to be of interest only to specialists.

It's not that bad

In general, it is not worthwhile to pay too much attention to the differences in the variants of the English language. At the everyday level, it is much more important to be able to formulate your own statements and recognize someone else's speech flow. If we are talking about renting, it is not difficult to understand that the American "apartment" means a room or set of rooms to live in even if you know the British version of "flat". Misunderstandings are eliminated quite easily.

Of course, it is desirable to be familiar with both options - everything can be useful in life. If you allow yourself a rough analogy, you need to be able to communicate in a clear language with both teenagers (American English) and educated adults (British English).