Search results for 'tag:British people tag:American English' matching tags 'British people' and 'American English'

Re: the use of ( a , the , of , in , on , none )

Clive — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:59:58 GMT

Hi,

ex1: I will try ( no sleeping / not to sleep ) Both OK, but 'not to sleep' is very much the normal thing to say.
ex2: I'm going to my work, ( for working / to work );to work
ex3: the tempreture today is about 30OK
ex4: I need to buy a shirt ( for the work / to ware it in the work ) for work or to wear at work
ex5 : I don't want to go to the shop ( for shoping / to do shoping ) today I don't want to go shopping . . Go shopping is a standard phrasei

I ~~read in~~ saw on the BBC news ( the tempreture is of 30 Celius) , is this true? or just the british people use the previous expressin , I need to learn american english language. It's incorrect to say the temperature is of 30 Celius. Just say the temperature is 30 Celsius.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: the use of ( a , the , of , in , on , none )

ashraf1978 — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:15:36 GMT

thank you Clive,

ex1: I will try ( no sleeping / not to sleep )
ex2: I'm going to my work, ( for working / to work )
ex3: the tempreture today is about 30
ex4: I need to buy a shirt ( for the work / to ware it in the work )
ex5 : I don't want to go to the shop ( for shoping / to do shoping ) today

I read in BBC news ( the tempreture is of 30 Celius) , is this true? or just the british people use the previous expressin , I need to learn american english language.

thanks a lot and best wishes.

Questions about flapping and glottalisation.

Lincoln Punch — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:42:32 GMT

Hello. I'm a student from Korea (South) trying to learn English based on received pronunciation. And it's kind of hard because everyone here tries to learn American English.

Here goes the questions:

1. I reckon Americans often use 'flapped d', but it seems that British people don't flap 'd' sound as much as Americans do.
Is it considered 'lazy' to flap 'd' pronunciation in British English? Like, when you say 'had a', or 'bad eighties'.

2. How about flapping 't' sound in one word? i.e., little, bottle...

3. Using glottalisation is THAT bad? I know it's originated from Cockney accent but I love the sound when 't' is glottalised.
If I glottalised the 't' sound when it's in end of the word, for example, 'I got a', 'about it', would I be considered as a 'lazy' speaker?

4. Am I using 'reckon' properly? :p

Sorry for asking so many questions, but I'm a very curious student.

Thanks for reading. Have a good one!

Re: If I'm used only to Standard English, might I have trouble understanding dialects?

bear2008 — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:31:16 GMT

Well, I assume that all British people know Standard English or the Queen's English as others call it.

And what about the American varieties? I know there is a general American accent. But I heard there are also varieties of American English. So, are those varieties great when compared to the General American accent?

Re: British vs American English in their accent

Kooyeen — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:54:41 GMT

It's a symbol for phonetic transcriptions and it represent a sound, not a letter. It's not a matter of pronouncing it differently, but a matter of using it or not. Americans use that sound in "bath" for example, but some people in the UK don't. So Americans say /bÃ¦Î¸/, and some people in the UK use another sound instead, so that transcription doesn't work to describe the way those British people talk.
That said, the transcriptions you find in dictionaries are not perfect, not 100% accurate. For example, even if every dictionary says "can" is pronounced /kÃ¦n/, most Americans say either /kÉÉn/, or /keÉn/, or /kÉªÉn/. It often happens before nasal consonants like N and M, for example.

Re: accents

SillyMe — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 10:32:36 GMT

"You knew your brother did a bad thing, did you?"

"You knew your brother did a bad thing, did you?"

Is the difference between those two an accent matter, or a pronunciation matter?

Neither. The intonation is the key. You have used an intonation stress to emphasise those words in the sentences. It has nothing to do with an accent. A lot of languages have the same mechanism for this purpose. People rarely speak in a monotonic way. They need an intonation to emphasise their ideas.

If your friends have a hard time understanding you when you start speaking with a "stupid" accent, then you need to analyze if you're really learning the target accent or not. It's not the accent's fault. How can it be?

Ok, Iâll say it again: I am not learning an accent. I just made sure that everyone could understand me. All people have different abilities in languages. I donât want to make anyone feel inconvenient when they are listening to me. My goal is to speak as accessible as possible for EVERYONE. I see accents as the main obstacle on this way.

Now, accents are part of a culture... be it in a country or in regions of that country. It may seem useless to you, but learning the american accent has given me the ability of having great conversations with many many americans. What about british people? They have no problem understanding americans, so I'm sure they'll have no problem understanding me... and I have spoken with british people, too. No communication issues.

I have never spoken to people whose first language was English and I donât think that Iâll ever do. English is the second language for most people. Why should I make my speech inaccessible for them? If I know that their level will not allow them to understand even a half of my speech, why should I? Language is a great tool to convey your ideas, why should I make it more complex and inaccessible?

LOL! This one made me smile! They are not speaking fast, it's that you are listening too slowly.

I have never said that I was a slow listener. But most people used to complain to me that speech of native speakers was hard to understand. Well, their (not natives) language might be poor, but anyway I am trying to sound easy to for them and for everyone in general.

To be understood by Americans... well, chances are you need to learn American English to understand Americans

I donât think so. I have never spoken to an American. I watch only dubbed films and like them that way. I donât listen to contemporary music, I like classical music. So, I think American English isnât present in my life.

The same applies for americans: how can I tell them that they don't know how to speak their own language?

They actually do. They are natives and they know it better. But unfortunately a spoken language is totally different from a written one to some extent of course. An accent is one of the main things that make this difference bigger. Why should one learn it, if nobody uses a spoken language (of course you have American friends, your situation might be a bit different or you live there, I donât know)? Most foreigners communicate using a written language. Thatâs why I want to speak slowly and without any reduction in my words.

Re: Difference between European English and US English.

Bokeh — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 20:14:07 GMT

Nona The Brit wrote:
slum prudery? Interesting turn of phrase.

It's from "My Fair Lady".

Nona The Brit wrote:
I think it is pretty true that a lot of British people don't consider us as part of Europe in quite the same way as other Europeans. Politically, yes.

I think the British people scared to embrace being Europeans are those who believe the imperialistic conservative nonsense that to be British is to be better.

Nona The Brit wrote:
But geographically, no.

Geographically, yes! The UK and Eire sit on the European continental shelf with a sea depth of less than 50 metres right the way around.

Nona The Brit wrote:
No other European countries have English as their native mother-tongue language.

That's true but it is also true that it's not the mother tongue of several million British subjects. (According to Wikipedia 70% of the UK population speak English monolingually.)

Nona The Brit wrote:
I think there are European countries which teach American English rather than the British version so how does that factor in?

Try doing a search on the web for British schools in Europe compared to American ones. Look at translation agencies and see how their FAQs specifically point out that they do British English. Also if you look at style guides for documents translated for the European Union you would see they state spellings and grammar should be British. Lastly it doesn't make sense that mainland Europe should learn US English in place of British English. Trade between the UK and its EU partners far exceeds any trade between the US and mainland Europe.

Re: Difference between European English and US English.

nona the brit — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 18:14:27 GMT

slum prudery? Interesting turn of phrase. I think it is pretty true that a lot of British people don't consider us as part of Europe in quite the same way as other Europeans. Politically, yes. But geographically, no. We are happy to talk about 'going to Europe'. I'm sure it seems peverse to outsiders but it's a common attitude in all sectors of our society.

No other European countries have English as their native mother-tongue language. It's true there are many speakers of British English - but you can also say that about the American version. Do you think we should stop calling it American English and start calling it something else?

Also, I think there are European countries which teach American English rather than the British version so how does that factor in?

Re: British versus american expressions

Eviltony — Sun, 06 May 2007 20:02:16 GMT

British EnglishAmerican English

I'd dispute that for a start! :-)

Just a few words to point out just a few of the different types of error in the list.....

1. One may adopt a baby in Britain, but I doubt that one can nominate a baby in America.
A British committee might adopt a proposal, but I doubt that the American one would nominate a proposal.
======
2. The word ginnel is given as British whereas it is really a regional/dialect word.
======
3. Flashers is not a standard, or even regional, term for what most British people would term 'indicators'. Flashers might possibly mean hazard lights - when both indicators are working simultaneously - otherwise flashers refers to men who expose themselves to people!
======
4. A full time job in British is a full time job. "Whole time" is an expression I have never heard of.
======
5. Treacle Sponge is NOT gingerbread - they are two different things.
======
6. British people are no longer 'subjects'.
======

Word lists such as the one posted are to be taken with a grain of salt and should be used only for general guidance.

Re: "Updates" to language

Kooyeen — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 19:18:42 GMT

Hi everyone,
this thread is cool. Yeah, it's cool because I was just thinking of that "updating" and I thought it would be funny. Americans receive updates from England:

Grammar Geek is at her computer, and sees a pop up, "Your database is pretty old, your vocabulary may not be up-to-date." Oh my, she says, and clicks on "update it now"... done! "Thank you for upgrading your English! You got a new word: aubergine."

Now, I would say that it's British people who are somehow upgrading thier English... This would be more likely:

Nona the Brit is at her PC, she's upgrading her English... "Thank you for upgrading your English from the new Hollywood database. You got a new word: dude."

Hahahah, funny.
Seriously now, I think it's not possible to control a language. Languages evolve, change, merge and die. If there was only a variety of English, don't you think it would be a dull language? It would be simple to learn and it would be understood everywhere, yes, but that would be dull. The only thing I hope is that English varieties won't diverge too much, to the point they will actually be separate languages. I don't think that will happen, mainly because of the Internet, Hollywood and mass-media in general. But if the Americas had been discovered 5000 years ago (thousands of years without media, heh), I believe American English and British English would now be two completely different languages.
That's all.