American English

vs. British English

Moon-jung, Choi
Jin-tae, Kim
 Contents

1 Vocabulary

2 Spelling

3 Grammar

4 Pronunciation
 Vocabulary
• Education
• Transport/Transportation
• Politics
• Levels of buildings
• Dates
• Weight
• Greetings
• Equivalent idioms
Education
 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."
 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."
 Transport/Transportation

American English British English

Transportation Transport

Drunk driving Drink driving

driving while intoxicated & drunk in charge of a motor

driving under the influence of vehicle
alcohol & driving with excess alcohol
Transport/Transportation
 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)
 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)
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)
 Spelling
• Noah Webster

• -our (BrE) -> -or(AmE)

colour -> color
labour -> labor
honour -> honor

• -re (BrE) -> -er(AmE)

centre -> center
theatre -> theater
 Spelling
• -ise (BrE) -> -ize(AmE)
realise -> realize

• -ce (BrE) -> -se (AmE)

defence -> defense

• Etc.
Cheque -> check
Catalogue -> catalog
 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)
 Grammar
• Verbs - Verb morphology
British

Present Past Past participle

saw sawed sawn
get got got
dream dreamt dreamt

American
Present Past Past participle
saw sawed sawed
get got gotten
dream dreamed dreamed
 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.
 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.
 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
 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)
 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
Pronunciation
 Pronunciation
1. Sound /r/
British English (Received Pronunciation)
vowel+ /r/ : /r/ disappeared
Ex. Bird, first, far, car

2. Sound /t/
American English
/t/ + unstressed syllable : /t/ -> /d/
Ex. butter -> budder
united -> unided
latter -> ladder
Pronunciation