Teach English in Jianshelu Jiedao - Anqing Shi

British english versus American EnglishEnglish is spoken in a lot of different countries as mother tongue and in other countries is spoken as a second language. This is one of the main reasons why english varies from one country to another. This also happens with American english and British english. Spoken American english is becoming more and more popular. The main reason for this is all the influences we have from that country such as: music, movies, talk shows, contest shows? Also we can hear a lot of that influence in business english. Most important companies from the united states are operating in many different countries all over the world and the terminology they use is common within the business field. Over the years, english spoken in the united states and Britain started diverging from each other. This is what stated the difference between the two of them and in grammar and its accents as we will cover next. British english has different accents depending on which part of the country it is spoken: irish, Scottish, Welsh and english. english itself has varieties concerning the background of the people who use it and which area of England (north, south, east and west). The proper British accent, ?The Queen´s accent? is standard and easy to understand, however the english spoken on regular basis is quite distinct from this and very difficult to understand for foreigners as the ?cockney? in London, which is almost impossible. There are also different American accents. The mid-west accent is the most commonly accent heard on television and movies; there is also the southern accent which is used in most of the southern states. New York and Boston, each have their own distinct accent which is more similar to the British due to the high immigration of irish and Scottish people. If we talk about spelling, in American english they tend to remove letters which are not pronounced, therefore not needed. In British english they tend to spell the words following french influence. Some examples of these would be: British english ? Centre, programme, colour? American english ? center, program, color? We can also find differences in vocabulary. Some words in British english might have a different meaning in American english or they might not be used as often. For example: British english: Fag means a cigarette in British slang American english: Fag means homosexual On the contrary other words change and to refer to a certain object both use different terminology. For example: British english: holiday, boot, petrol, truck American english: vacation, trunk, gas, lorry There are differences in use of past tenses. British english use the present perfect to express an action that has occurred in the past and the time is uncertain or not finished. For example: I have lost my keys today (The action is finished but the time is not finished, because is still today). In American english the use of the past tense would be correct so we could say I lost my keys today. This sentence would be considered incorrect in British english. The past and past participle of some verbs vary, while learn and dream become learned and dreamed in British english, in American english would become learnt and dreamt. Prepositions also show differences. British would say I wash my car at the weekend and American would say I wash my car on the weekend. Americans do not use the 24 hours format but the 12 hour format as well as the British they add am (ante meridiam) or pm (post meridiam) after the time. The way the express the time is also different. While in Britain we would say quarter past ten or half past ten in America we would say ten fifteen and ten thirty. The decision of using American or British english will come down to the users need. Both are correct and therefore both will be accepted. Languages are alive and they change every day, their use make this happen.