I wrote ‘British’ but the vocabulary was a hotch-potch of Irish, British and American words depending on who I was with and in what context. None of this was a conscious attempt to fuse these influences. As a child this all happens seemlessly without effort.

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Later on in life, I attended university at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC and my English began to make a lurch towards ‘American’. So much so that my accent and English have mutated into something a little freaky (as you can see in the following video).

So why so much confusion over what is ‘proper’ English? A lot of other languages have national bodies that decide what is the ‘proper’ form, e.g., Spanish, French, German and Irish. So can you speak American, British or some other type of English and still be speaking ‘correctly’? 

If we have an independent government, why can’t we have an independent language?

The first time the issue of American language independence was raised by a lexicographer Noah Webster, the author of An American Dictionary of the English Language. His vision of the American language is well presented in the quote below:

“There iz no alternativ. Every possible reezon that could ever be offered for altering the spelling of wurds, stil exists in full force; and if a gradual reform should not be made in our language, it wil proov that we are less under the influence of reezon than our ancestors.”

As you can see from the alternatively-spelt quote above, he insisted that many spelling conventions of British English were artificial and needlessly confusing. He was subsequently the first to modify a lot of words’ spellings, for example, musick changed to music, centre to center, plough to plow, colour to color, honour to honor and labour to labor.
So Webster had a huge influence on the spelling differences that we observe today even though not all of his ideas were accepted and “women” did not become “wimmen”. His spelling reform also simplified the learning process for the millions of immigrants were subsequently arrived in the US and had to learn to read and write English as a foreign language. 

So what makes American English most different from British english?

Sometimes British English is considered as being more formal than the American standard. This is actually not true in general, it’s just that ‘upper class’ British English can appear that way and that’s not what the majority of Brits actually speak.

Here are 7 key differences:

1. The use of present perfect and past tense. Where the present perfect is used in British English, in American English it is preferable to use simple past tense. There are two cases: in sentences which talk about an action in the past that have an effect on the present and in sentences with time indicators such as “already”, “yet” and “just”. So, if the British would say “I feel bad. I’ve eaten too much”, the Americans would prefer: “I feel bad. I ate too much”;

Me working at my London ‘Office’
2. The verb agreement with collective nouns. If in British English the collective nouns can be followed by a singular or a plural form, in American English they are always followed by a singular form. So in British English “My team are/is winning” becomes “My team is winning” in American English;
3. The use of verbs “have” and “take”. In the case where the verb doesn’t have a lot of context in the sentence but occurs with an object noun which describes the action, the verb “have” is used in British English, and the verb “take” in American English. So “I want to take a bath” in American English is the same as “I want to have a bath” in British English;
4. The use of “needn’t” and “don’t need to”. The first form is frequently used in British English, and almost never used in American English. Americans would say “don’t need too” in this case;
5. The use of “shall”, “will”, “should”. In British English, it is common to use both “shall” and “will” (“I shall/will arrive earlier”), in American English only “will” is used. And in the case of asking for advice, Americans use “should”. For example, in British English, “shall I see a doctor?” is “should I see a doctor?” in American English;
Beautiful Central Park in New York City where I chilled during the Polyglot Conference 2015 weekend
6. The different simple past and past participle forms. Not all the verbs in American English are conjugated similarly to British English. For example, the verbs dream, burn and spoil can end with “ed” (American version) and “t” (British version). Also, the past participle of “get” in American English is “gotten” when in British English it was simplified a long time ago and it is “got”.
7. The rhotic accent is one of the most important and most noticeable differences between British and American English. The rhotic accent is common for American English, with the exception for New York and Boston area.  It refers to the manner letter “r” is pronounced after a vowel within a syllable. For example, in the words hard  (after long vowel), later  (after ), here  (after ) and pure  (after ).
Of course, there are a lot of words that are different because of the different geographical locations, as well as, economic and cultural developments. For example, it is logical that British English is more influenced by French and American English has taken some additional words from its immigrant communities, in particular from Spanish, Italian, Yiddish and Dutch.
So, below is the list of the phrases that are different and we use them every day:

And what English do you speak or are currently learning? Write me your thoughts and experiences with British and American English in the comments section below. I read all comments I receive

Michael

Michael has been an avid language learner and traveler for many years. His goal with LanguageTsar is to discover the most fun and effective ways to learn a language. He is currently learning Japanese, French and Indonesian.

languagetsar.com/

English is today by far the world’s most studied foreign language. According to the British Council a little under 1 billion have English as a foreign language.

French was once used as the main international language for diplomacy but during the course of the 20th century it has usurped by English. However, French is still used as a working language at the UN, as well as, at the EU and is spoken by around 300 million people across the world.

French has the influence of both the German and English languages and at the same time, English is a Germanic language with French and Latin influence. So actually they have a lot of common points, for example, 45% of all English words have a French origin.

Looking for the fastest way to learn French?

This can be explained by the Norman Invasion of England in 1066 by William the Conqueror and for next four centuries, English people spoke both Old English and French, which became the main language of upper classes. French was at that time was the leading language in the world thanks to the strong economic and political position of France. As a result, more and more Englishmen were learning it.

What differences between the French and English can we observe today?

Grammar differences:

1. Word order. In French the adjectives usually follow the noun, for example une ville moderne (literally: “city modern”), when in English it is said “modern city”. Of course, there are the exceptions in French with such adjectives as bon (“good”), nouveau (“new”), petit (“little”) etc., but it is not the common case.

2. Noun gender. In French, all nouns are either le or la words. This commonly referred to as the “gender” (masculine or feminine) but I find this to be a misnomer as most nouns are neuter so the designation of “gender” is not helpful. In the previous example, the noun une ville (“city”) is a la word (or ‘female’ gender), so the adjective modern(e) will be also change  and add an e at the end. In English, there are no such changes.

3. Accents. In French, the accents (accent aigu, accent grave, accent circonflexe, accent tréma) are used in many words,  when in English only in foreign words.

4. Conjugation. In French, every subject has to be conjugated differently whereas, in English, only the third person (he, she) is different. For example, Je parles (I talk); Tu parles (You talk); Il parle (He speaks); Nous parlons (We talk); Vous parlez (You talk); Ils parlent (They talk).

5.  Negative form. Instead of adding “not” to the main verb as it is done in English, in French we add ne before the verb and pas after it. For example, the phrase C’est Jane (“This is Jane”) in negative form is Ce n’est pas Jane (“This is not Jane”).

6. Capital letters are frequently used in English, in the words of languages, days of week, months, while French grammar tries to minimise the use of capital letters.

Pronunciation differences:

1. In French the stress of the word is always syllable even for some English loan words such as McDonald’s, Google and management.

2.  In English there are the sounds like the retroflex “l” (to fall), the “th” (tooth) and the “dh” (mother), which don’t exist in French. That is why French people struggle a lot while pronouncing them.

3. The phenomenon of liaison in French is when a normally silent consonant at the end of a word is pronounced at the beginning of the word that follows it. For example, vous voulez (“you want”) is pronounced as but in the phrase vous avez (“you have”) it is pronounced as.

4. In some cases in French the consonants are not pronounced in the end of the word. For example, in the words froid (“cold”), chaud (“hot”) the final D isn’t pronounced, so phonetically it is and , however in the word sud (“south”) it has to be pronounced, and it sounds as.

5. And of course, the most complicated part of French pronunciation is often the letter r, which is a gutteral sound made deep in the throat. Don’t worry! This one comes with a little of practice!

Conclusion

French was the first foreign language that I successfully learnt and it’s often a very tricky one for native English speakers to master, in spite of the huge amount of similarities between them!

Nailing the French language then set me on a meandering language journey through more than 10 languages. So good luck with learning your languages and never let the ‘differences’ discourage you. Everyone can learn any language eventually!

Have you learnt or do you speak English or French? If so, write me your thoughts and experiences with these 2 different languages in the comments section below. I read all comments I receive.

Michael

Michael has been an avid language learner and traveler for many years. His goal with LanguageTsar is to discover the most fun and effective ways to learn a language. He is currently learning Japanese, French and Indonesian.

languagetsar.com/