http://www.englishforums.com/search/pro.htm?q=tag%3aBritish+English+tag%3aLearning+English+tag%3aVocabularySearch results for 'tag:British English tag:Learning English tag:Vocabulary' matching tags 'British English', 'Learning English', and 'Vocabulary'en-USCSMOD (Build: 3273.32735)http://www.englishforums.com/English/PollBritishEnglishAmericanEnglish/2/zvqlj/Post.htm#442077Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:35:30 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:442077daffy duck Anonymous wrote Well I have encountered this problem recently I had been learning english for few years then I stopped attending courses or lessons I have been learning at home and watching American TV series and movies so I have picked up a lot of vocabulary So far so good Then I realised when preparing to Cambridge Exam that I have to forget american words and learn british equivalents Because now I am mixing both It s fine by me as long as people can understand me Still when passing an exam you need to be consistent using either american or british english It s tricky American english surrounds us everywhere so we re more familiar with it On the contrary I just love british accent even though learning british pronounciation isn t easy Nice to hear from you again Anonymous It s tricky for us teachers too We don t even know if it s just going to be British or American English Few days ago I met some students and their parents asked about teachers who can teach Canadian English Imagine http://www.englishforums.com/English/PollBritishEnglishAmericanEnglish/zvwbz/post.htm#439591Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:56:04 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:439591anonymousWell I have encountered this problem recently I had been learning english for few years then I stopped attending courses or lessons I have been learning at home and watching American TV series and movies so I have picked up a lot of vocabulary So far so good Then I realised when preparing to Cambridge Exam that I have to forget american words and learn british equivalents Because now I am mixing both It s fine by me as long as people can understand me Still when passing an exam you need to be consistent using either american or british english It s tricky American english surrounds us everywhere so we re more familiar with it On the contrary I just love british accent even though learning british pronounciation isn t easy http://www.englishforums.com/English/EnglishDifficultLearn/5/vcggg/Post.htm#345752Sat, 31 Mar 2007 15:55:37 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:345752marvin a.and an ignorant American would look at British and pronounce practise Br spelling like practize Highly unlikely Americans on the other hand have been butchering it for centuries and should not be consulted when learning this language It is after all English and not American Rubbish North American English is in many ways much closer to Elizabethan English than British English Australian English and New Zealand English Anonymous Australian Well we could say that Australian English speakers are butchering the language for one thing most of you have forgotten how to prononounce your r s your vowels are quite different earlier forms of English and your vocabulary has shifted quite a bit It is after all English and not American Well it s not Australian either so it is logical that the more words one knows the more thoughts one can have How is that logical Other languages can also be quite expressive Just because English has over a million words you have to realize that many are simply restricted to medicine others are not in common use and would be quite incomprehensible to most people Just by possessing a copious amount of words many of these so called English words are hardly native words and are not understood by many people doesn t mean that English is more expressive than other languages in all respects It the spelling was fixed 400 years agoYes for the most part But what I don t understand is if someone wants to simply be able to speak English and doesn t care about reading and writing why don t they simply use a phonetic alphabet when learning English though I m convinced once upon a time it really was pronounced kuh ni git Actually in Old and Middle English the k was pronounced but there was no uh after it and the g was pronounced like in the word Loch if you put on a Scottish accent Or meaby something from German einhundertfunfundzwazig 125 this is correct spelling there shouldn t be any spaces Well it s easy enough to break down and is hardly harder than onehundredtwentyfive You say its easy and yet you write learned instead of learnt a classic example learned and learnt tend to be pretty well interchangeable http://www.englishforums.com/English/Vocabulary/dbngq/post.htm#259351Fri, 25 Aug 2006 22:14:45 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:259351englishuserHi Nef Once again please forgive me for quoting you in a clumsy way This also makes learning English so exciting you need to learn British English Canadian English Caribbean English Nigerian English Australian English You have a lot more energy than I do but that s good I think you definitely need to know world English It s a must really I m currently studying South African and Nigerian Englishes Not to speak of learning the vocabulary of Chaucer and Shakespeare something that s paramount to all of us I should think I have never thought it was paramount to anyone except the people who thought it was paramount to themselves I m not one of them src emoticons emotion 1 gif Perhaps you re right At least people will be impressed with your English if you manage to use seventeenth century vocabulary and grammar Perhaps I should try to imitate Shakespeare in my posts Speaking of professors of English do you think they have vaster vocabularies than other native speakers including English teachers I think there s a huge amount of individual variation Interesting I somehow find it unlikely that a Professor of English at the University of Harward for instance would know fewer words than a native speaker who hasn t studied English English majors are after all required to read quite a lot Where are you from EU Your question is a bit cryptical EU could be an abbreviation for the European Union in which case you d want me to confirm your assumption that I m an EU national and not an AU national for instance Yes I m from the EU Of course EU could also be an abbreviation for EnglishUser which is probably what you meant but as you can see I decided to answer the question my own way As we ve been discussing the importance of knowing various words I think I should mention that people know words differently For instance it s very obvious to most native speakers that tonga refers to a small light two wheeled horse or pony drawn carriage or cart originating in India but very few people would know that the word entered the English language sometime between 1870 and 1899 and that the word came from the Hindi word taga my apologies for not being able to use appropriate punctuation marks or Hindi characters here I personally think it s important to know a word well so to say which basically means you know something about its origin various acceptable pronunciations etc Also one should never forget to learn every known meaning past and present for each word in the language no matter how archaic and obsolete some of them might be To give you an example the word pudding means at least 15 different things 2 of which are archaic Not everyone knows that pudding was used for a pudding roasted within the body of an animal for instance Pudding was used in this sense c 1570 1799 and in my opinion this is an important piece of information http://www.englishforums.com/English/Vocabulary/dbngj/post.htm#259344Fri, 25 Aug 2006 21:55:27 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:259344nef Englishuser wrote Hi Nef I hope you will permit me to quote you in my post I admire your English and your attitude Thank you Group 5 is completely unneccessary for most native speakers You never know My goal has always been to learn as many words as possible and honestly I wouldn t mind knowing as many words as a native professor of English at an Ivy League institution would Speaking of professors of English do you think they have vaster vocabularies than other native speakers including English teachers I also am struck by the difference between reading vocabulary and speaking vocabulary For instance I don t think I ve ever heard anyone say abattoir except in a script Where I am slaughterhouse is a lot more common Regional variation Abattoir is more common in British English whilst slaughterhouse is the normal choice amongst North American speakers This also makes learning English so exciting you need to learn British English Canadian English Caribbean English Nigerian English Australian English Not to speak of learning the vocabulary of Chaucer and Shakespeare something that s paramount to all of us I should think Let me know what you think This also makes learning English so exciting you need to learn British English Canadian English Caribbean English Nigerian English Australian English You have a lot more energy than I do but that s good Not to speak of learning the vocabulary of Chaucer and Shakespeare something that s paramount to all of us I should think I have never thought it was paramount to anyone except the people who thought it was paramount to themselves I m not one of them Speaking of professors of English do you think they have vaster vocabularies than other native speakers including English teachers I think there s a huge amount of individual variation Where are you from EU http://www.englishforums.com/English/Vocabulary/dbngr/post.htm#259335Fri, 25 Aug 2006 21:02:00 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:259335englishuserHi Nef I hope you will permit me to quote you in my post I admire your English and your attitude Thank you Group 5 is completely unneccessary for most native speakers You never know My goal has always been to learn as many words as possible and honestly I wouldn t mind knowing as many words as a native professor of English at an Ivy League institution would Speaking of professors of English do you think they have vaster vocabularies than other native speakers including English teachers I also am struck by the difference between reading vocabulary and speaking vocabulary For instance I don t think I ve ever heard anyone say abattoir except in a script Where I am slaughterhouse is a lot more common Regional variation Abattoir is more common in British English whilst slaughterhouse is the normal choice amongst North American speakers This also makes learning English so exciting you need to learn British English Canadian English Caribbean English Nigerian English Australian English Not to speak of learning the vocabulary of Chaucer and Shakespeare something that s paramount to all of us I should think Let me know what you think