Wednesday 11 May 2011

BRITISH ENGLISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH

Independent English Course Bogor has so far encouraged students to speak, write, listen to and read English more often. Students usually ask questions over several things they find such as why there is "color" and "colour", "holiday" and "vacation", "have got" and "has got", and so on. Here we provide some information about some differences that you may find when you practise your English. 
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British and American English - The Same But Very Differrent 
Executive summary by Paul Kennard 

The basic difference lies vocabulary level. Whereas the British have petrol , the Americans call it gasoline; while the British drive lorries, the Americans drive trucks; the Americans pay checks, whereas the British pay bills; the British eat chips, but the Americans eat French fries and so on. Furthermore both groups of people will often use the same words , however these words denote totally different things. This problem creates much cause of misunderstandings, especially to people who learn English as a second language.

Another important factor which separates British and American English is the pronunciation. Unlike the British , the Americans pronounce -r in last syllables, the example of which can be words like weather, sweater, soldier etc. The word princess has a different stress in American English as to British English. The British stress the second syllable, whereas in American English the first syllable of this word is stressed. Other examples are advertisement, laboratory, ballet (though this word can be stressed in two ways in the American variety of English.

Let us now compare both languages by taking a closer look at how grammar is approached. The most outstanding dissimilarity in the use of grammar is how Americans apply the simple past tense to situations where the British tend to use the present perfect tense. In addition the Americans are thought even to ignore the present perfect tense all together.

In contrast to British English, American spelling is rather simplified. Whereas the British have colour, harbour or honour, the Americans shorten it to color, harbor and honor, omitting u in ou clusters. Another difference is not doubling of -l- in words whereas the British do so, for example traveler/traveller, leveling/levelling. Some words in American English end in -og, but the British spell them -ogue, e.g. dialogue/dialog, catalogue/catalog and so on. Others may claim that, on the other hand, these two varieties of the English language are different, and in addition, people should be aware of these aspects in which American English and British English differ.

Differences Between American And British English In Article Marketing
Executive summary by Una Page

As an author who is concerned how to achieve best marketing results with their articles, you may not be aware of the importance to distinguish differences between American and British English in your writing. Nuances in spelling and pronouncing between the dialects typical for different English speaking territories may seem small and insignificant, but they may play a crucial role in what effect will your article have for its target audience. 

Typical examples of the words that are written differently in American and British English are: centre vs. center, color vs. colour, fulfill vs. fulfil and the list goes on. Typical differences in usage of tenses and morphology would be learnt versus learned. Your ability to abide to different English language rules depending on the territory of your target audience will determine success or failure of your article marketing efforts. This especially applies if you are writing about subjects that imply heavy usage of 'duality' words. For example, if you are writing about design or painting and your target audience are Americans, they would be heavily distracted by consistent and persistent usage of word 'colour' instead of 'color'.

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