Differences between American and British English
- May 7, 2024
- Posted by: Yury Subachev, PhD
- Categories: For young scientists, Scientific translation
One may wonder what could be so different about the same language spoken in America and Britain. How strong are the differences between American and British English? The British themselves believe that there is no such thing as American English. There is simply wrong English spoken by the people of the USA.
Is this really the case? Or there is still a significant difference between British English and American English a scholar needs to be aware of when submitting a paper to a relevant international journal? Let us find it out.
It is no secret for those who have heard the speech of the Foggy Albion inhabitants and the speech of Americans that the latter tend to pronounce the sound R where the British would leave it out, extending a vowel instead. This applies to the position of the letter R both at the end of a word and in the middle. For example:
- Car – American [kar], British [kɑ:].
- Card – American [kard], British [kɑ:d].
- Murder – American [mɜːrdər], British [mɜːdə].
The intonation of the British (meaning the classical, bookish intonation taught at universities, without regard to geographical peculiarities) and Americans is also strikingly different. Americans speak faster; the intonation is mostly downward, while the British have a lot of intonation patterns that are quite difficult to understand.
If you rarely participate in international scientific conferences and are only interested in the written differences between American and British languages, then intonation is not important for you. But if you often deliver oral presentations in English and you are required to sound “British” it will be very difficult to do it without due preparation and rehearsals.
2. Vocabulary differences in American and British English.
As is known, the present-day Americans are natives of almost all European and Asian countries who once came to conquer the territories of the new continent. Due to this “assemblage”, the vocabulary of American English began to differ from the classical vocabulary of British residents. New borrowed words appeared; the meaning of old words changed, and some words fell out of the language altogether.
As a result, if a Briton says “holiday”, an American may not immediately realise that he/she means “vacation”. And this is not the only difference:
Windcoat – anorak (British) – wind breaker (American)
Banknote paper – banknote (British) – bill (American)
Blinds – curtains (British) – drapes (American)
Jogging shoes – gym shoes (British) – sneakers (American)
Vanity bag – handbag (British) – purse (American)
Disease – ill (British) – sick (American)
Ascensor – lift (British) – elevator (American)
Post-office – post (British) – mail (American)
Shopping outlet – shop (British) – store (American)
Lollipop – sweet (British) – candy (American)
There is a difference in the lexical composition of two variants of the same language, and this is a fact. But this does not mean that a Briton and an American will not understand each other when they meet. Still, the differences are not so global and mass-scale. Calling one thing by different names can be compared to a case of “curbside” and “street curb”: understanding is a matter of principle and personal opinionatedness.
3. Differences in British and American-English grammar.
There are several differences in the grammar of the two variants of English.
1. Collective nouns. These are nouns that refer to a group of people, e.g. team, band, family.
Unlike British English, which has two numbers (singular and plural) for collective nouns, American English has only one option – singular. Let’s give an example.
a) The team has met to discuss the results of the project.
British: The team have not agreed yet, since they are still arguing about certain solutions.
American: The team has not agreed yet, since it is still arguing about certain solutions.
b) The company, that won the award last year, is still celebrating its victory.
British: The company are trying to develop a new product. They are going to launch it next year.
American: The company is trying to develop a new product. It is going to launch it next year.
2. Auxiliary verbs. The British use “shall” to express an action in the future tense, while Americans replace it with “will”.
In the interrogative form, the English say: “Shall we go now?”, whereas Americans use: “Should we go now?”.
The British, in the absence of a binding action, will say: “You needn’t do this”, while the Americans will construct the sentence as follows: “You don’t need to do this”.
Let us look at past tense verbs. Do you remember the table of irregular verbs you were memorising? Forget it if you are going to America. Just kidding. The differences are not that great:
Classic British irregular verbs with the ending -t become verbs with the ending -ed in American English:
learnt → learned
dreamt → dreamed
burnt → burned
leapt → leaped.
Another example is with the verb “to get”: get-got-got (British), get-got-gotten (American).
One more nuance: the British use Present Perfect Tense to denote an action that happened not so long ago and has a connection to the present. Americans replace it with Past Simple. For example: I’ve eaten too much vs. I ate too much.
4. Spelling differences between American and British English.
There are a lot of minor differences in word spelling between British and American English. You have Noah Webster to thank for this, yes, the one who compiled one of the most famous dictionaries of the English language. He proposed the idea of spelling English words as they are heard. The idea didn’t catch on to the delight of the British, but there are still echoes of it:
1. Loss of the letter “u” in “labour”, “favourite”, “colour”, “honour”, etc. in the American variant of the language. However, not all words have lost this letter, there are exceptions: “glamour”, “armour”.
2. Dropout of the letter “e” in American English: ageing – aging, dyeing – dying.
3. The British ending –re, characteristic of words of Latin, Greek and French origin, turns into –er in American: calibre – caliber, centre – center, litre – liter, etc.
4. The endings –ise, –yse of British English are changed to –ize, –yze in the American version: realise – realize, recognise – recognize, paralyse – paralyze, etc.
In addition to the above, there are many other nuances that a translator needs to know well and study permanently because language, like progress, is constantly changing, especially as concerns English – a widespread language.
Conclusion
You may call American English anything you want – incorrect English, a variant, a dialect, or a separate language – but the point remains the same. British and American variants of English are in fact different from each other. There are differences at almost all levels: lexical, grammatical, spelling and phonetic.
A professional translator must know the difference between British and American English to avoid any awkward blunders when translating a text. In addition, it is advisable to primarily realise which variant of English is required and only then start working.
When translating a text, pay attention to the use of vocabulary, idiomatic expressions (those that are common in England may be unknown in the United States, and vice versa), nuances of correspondence (if you are writing for a journal), and noun endings.
Attention to detail and knowledge of the peculiarities specific to both varieties of the English language is what makes a translator a professional.
