Search results for 'tag:British English tag:Spelling' matching tags 'British English' and 'Spelling'

A dictionary

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:34:17 GMT

ãThis dictionary tells you about English words and how to use them in reading, writing and speaking English. It not only gives the meaning of words, it can also help you with spelling, word building, grammar and pronunciation.

ããTo use your dictionary correctly, you need to understand how the dictionary works. At the front of the book, you will find some exercises to help you make the most use of your dictionary.

ããIf you look up the word âcolourâ, you will find two spellings for this word. âColourâ is used in British English, while âcolorâ is used in American English. When such a thing happens, the dictionary shows it with the word âBrEâ for British English and âAmEâ for American English.

ããThe dictionay also helps you pronounce words correctly. It uses a special alphabet to show pronunciation. If you turn to the inside back face, you will see all the phonetic letters with some words to show you how they are pronounced. Just have a look this page when youâre not sure how to say a word.

ããThe most important reason for using a dictionary is to find out the meaning of a wordâits DEFINITION.

ããIn this dictionary, the definitions have been written using only 2000 words. This means that the definitions of even the most difficult words are simply explained and easy to understand.
ããWhen a word has more than one meaning, read all the meanings until you find the one that correctly tells the use of the word you are looking for

Re: TO REALISE / TO REALIZE

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:43:11 GMT

Actually folks, you are confusing a variation in British spelling with the variation between British and American English. The -ize ending is a variant of British English spelling preferred by the Oxford University Press (and I believe until recent years by The Times). Hence it appears as the first choic in the OALD mentioned in an earlier post. The whole issue is summarised in Wikipedia under "Oxford Spelling".

Re: fair-haired

Pter — Mon, 19 May 2008 10:02:06 GMT

Yes, there are regional variations in American English. Do you know which accent is chosen by MW as the reference in the pronunciation keys. Is it General American?

My problem is that, as I have mentioned before, they are indeed denoted differently in British English. The first one is a simple vowel while the second one is a diphthong / e /. The question is whether the diphthong / e / ONLY occurs before an R. If it occurs before some other consonants, such as D, L, T, N ( / -et /, / -el /, / -ed /, / -en / ), using / er / to indicate a different sound from / e / is not a good idea because you'll have problems showing the differences between / -et /, / -el /, / -ed /, / -en / and / -et /, / -el /, / -ed /, / -en / respectively.

Certain combination of sounds just do not exist in English and that's why they don't need to use diacritic to indicate that the P in SP is non-aspirated whereas an initial P is aspirated. The bottom line is that the pronunciation keys have to be non-ambiguous. This is the same reason why they don't need to use diacritic to indicate tapped intervocalic T or final dark L. (Clear L at syllabic final position does not exist.)

I did a search in my pronunciation dictionary and found that the combinations / -et / and / -el / do not exist. / -ed / and / -en / only exist when the spelling has an R between / e / and the following consonant. Since British English is non-rhotic, the corresponding American pronunciation would have an R before that consonant, resulting in / rd / and / rn /. So, / e / ONLY occurs before an R! As a result, using / er / in American English to represent the counterpart of the British English / e / is non-ambiguous after all!

After going through all these discussions, I finally found out the reasons.

Kooyeen, many thanks indeed for discussing this issue with me. Without your insights, I would not have been able to find out the underlying issues that has been troubling me.

EDIT:

It appears that / e / was the result of the influence of the following R sound on the / e / sound. It is therefore actually the equivalent of / er / in American English. However, because British English is non-rhotic, the R influence results in the / e / becoming a diphthong, i.e. a schwa is added after the / e / to become / e /.

EDIT 2:

While adding the above EDITed text, I just found that what I guessed was probably right.

http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/text-only/received-pronunciation/london/

The vowels of youth
Listen first to the vowel sound she uses in the words air, there, their, where, somewhere and parents. In traditional forms of RP, they would be pronounced with a diphthong â that is two vowel sounds. Older RP speakers would start with an <e> sound â as in bed â before drifting into a weak vowel rather like the initial sound in about. This type of pronunciation, also applied to words such as dare, hair and bear, was until relatively recently common in many English accents. The diphthong emerged once speakers began to omit the <r> sound at the end. Speakers throughout the UK once pronounced this <r> sound, but it is increasingly restricted to speakers in the West Country and far South West of England, a small area of Lancashire and most of Scotland and Ireland. It is also present in most US English accents. The <r> sound was initially replaced by the weak vowel at the end of the diphthong, but nowadays most younger RP speakers omit this final part of the diphthong and simply use a long <e> sound â thus shared is pronounced with exactly the same vowel as in shed, only the vowel is noticeably longer. This demonstrates perfectly how successive sound changes can radically alter the pronunciation of a set of words. Most RP speakers, like Michelle, now only distinguish between pairs such as fairs and fez or flared and fled simply by vowel length. Older speakers tend to use a diphthong for the first word in each pair.

It means that the Received Pronunciation that I have been learning (and indicated on all the dictionaries) is only that of the older generation! What a surprising finding from this simple question of fair-haired!

Re: What makes English so difficult to learn?

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:34:01 GMT

Hello, another English teacher here. I have been teaching English in China for about 2 and a half years now and also speak fluent French, decent Spanish and am learning Chinese (not as hard as you may think once you get the hang of those tones, easy grammar). Now I'll start off by saying that English seems to be an incredibly easy language to communicate with (and by this I mean to give the general idea of what you're trying to say). However, if you want to learn English like a native speaker then it's a completely different story. The pronunciation CAN be difficult to learn depending on your native language and also the age you attempt to learn it at. Training your tongue and mouth to move the same way a native speaker does can be difficult to do, especially if you're like many of my students who got their start at an older age or didn't have good teachers. I've also noticed that my younger students are able to mimic my speech much easier than the older ones speaking, both of whom are studying at the same level. I started learning French when I was 4 years old (Quebec French, I'm Canadian) and because of the quality of my teachers and my young age I was able to become quite good with my pronunciation. With my Chinese because I'm learning from scratch from native speakers my pronunciation is also decent (notice I said decent, not great, although when speaking Chinese I'm always understood). Native language has a lot to do with it too as the sounds you use in one language may be very different for another. I've taught in both the north and south of China and find that the people all have the same problems. Chinese people have problems with s (they often pronounce it as a sh sound) and with closing their mouth for the letter m ("sometimes" is a nightmare for them and they often say it like "suntine"). L and R can also be troublesome. One can't forget sentence stress as well as well as linking words together to make it go smoothly.

The vocabulary can also be a pain. Someone here mentioned 150,000 words in the English language but the number is actually much higher. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition) contains over 600,000 definitions. Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged contains 475,000 main headwords and it is believed the language grows by 25,000 words a year. Don't believe me, check Wikipedia. There's also the difference in spelling and vocabulary between the different forms of English. British English and American English use different words and the words that are the same can be spelled differently. American English and Canadian English essentially share the same vocabulary to a large degree but the spelling of Canadian English in many ways is closer to British English. British English is pretty much the English form most Asian and European countries will learn but American pop culture will also have an influence, not to mention the American economy and it's impact. This can all be very confusing. To the person saying they are tired of using "well" as in "well, then..." there are many substitutes you could use.

The grammar is also a nuisance. It's not the hardest of things but certainly isn't the easiest. Sure French has a gender attached to all of it's nouns (which I hated when learning it), but English still has more exceptions to it's rules that need to me memorized. So many even native speakers have trouble with it. A language like Chinese that may seem hard to speak actually has very simple grammar. For example if you wanted to ask someone where they are you would say "ni zai na li" or simply "ni zai nar" (you where?). To ask a question in Chinese you merely ad "ma" to the end of a statement. "Ta hui shuo zhongwen" is "he/she speaks Chinese whereas "ta hui shuo zhongwen ma" is "does he/she speak Chinese?". Also in Chinese as there are no forms of he or she.

It's impossible to say which language is easy and which is hard when compared to each other because there are so many things that need to be taken into consideration. Let's just say that English has it's easy parts and it's ridiculously difficult parts as well. Speaking at a native speaker level can be done and I know people who have done this, but it takes a lot of hard work, good instruction, and a good learning atmosphere. I hope all that made sense, I stumbled onto this site a 2 in the morning and am quite tired.

Re: Smelt/smell

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 12:23:10 GMT

Smelt is an alternative to smelled and is preferable, though not obligatory, in British English. At the end of the day, the sound difference is only between and . The verbs that follow a this pattern of having regular / irregular alternatives with this t/d sound ending are:
infinitive irreg past tense and participle regular past tense and participle

burn	burnt	burnt burned
dream	dreamt	dreamt dreamed
lean	leant	leant leaned
leap	leapt	leapt leaped
learn	learnt	learnt learned
smell	smelt	smelt smelled
spell	spelt	spelt spelled
spill	spilt	spilt spilled
spoil	spoilt	spoilt spoiled

In General American English there is a preference to make these verbs regular, which is also acceptable in British English (no one can say you're wrong for using these words) but not usually used. I don't know if, in America, they would tell you that the irregular spelling is wrong or whether it would be accepted as an alternative.

Re: Poll: British English vs American English

Yoong Liat — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:00:46 GMT

I learn BrE, but I think AmE sounds more logical when it comes to the spelling of words. For example, in spelling, 'colour' (BrE) is 'color' in AmE. The 'u' doesn't serve any purpose. It only makes the word harder to spell for those whose spelling is weak. Other words are 'honor' and 'program'.

Re: counselors/counsellors/councilors

Angliholic — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:01:21 GMT

Annvan wrote:
The first best fits your text. The second is the British English spelling (then you'd need to change the spelling of "counseling" to counselling"). The third refers to a member of a council.

Thanks, Annvan.

Got it.

Re: counselors/counsellors/councilors

Annvan — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:17:18 GMT

The first best fits your text. The second is the British English spelling (then you'd need to change the spelling of "counseling" to counselling"). The third refers to a member of a council.

Re: Is American English lazy English?

Anonymous — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:02:27 GMT

"I much prefer the attitude of the British. They have enough respect for the language to use correct spelling, clear enunciation and to observe the correct use of prepositions and general grammar. On the other hand, some Americans seem to like reinventing the language as they go."

To use a British word, bollocks! Americans at least pronounce all the syllables in words like "territory" and "secretary". Most of them also pronounce the letter "r" in all positions, where standart British English no longer does. They speak at a slower pace than British English, and as a British English teacher, I am told by my foreign students invariably that they find American English easier to understand. Their pronunciation is closer to the London pronunciation of the early 17th century than modern British RP.

I do not understand what you mean by correct. Do you mean your personal use of English, and do you measure other people's English against this? You seem to me to be one of those, who has never studied linguistics or phonology, let alone grammar, but thinks they can sound off about language in some sort of authoritative way.

Re: British English and American English

Mister Micawber — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 12:55:47 GMT

Aside from some small spelling variations, there are virtually no differences in the written language.