2020 #02 - [Culture] - British English vs American English

Hello, my name is Heleno Alves from Talking to Improve project and this is just 'the reading exercise' of the day. Today we are going to read a little about the difference between American and British English. It is a short text. You ready? Shall we go? Come on.

There was a time in history when the Americans and the British saw the world very differently. At one point, Americans decided that they wanted a distinctly American form of English, with more sensible spelling conventions and a more practical vocabulary.

Whether or not that has actually happened is still a matter of debate. Either way, this linguistic movement generated an abundance of words which are spelled differently in British and American English, but which nevertheless carry identical meanings.

Some words are written identically, however there is a change in pronunciation, in which case we have an "accent issue". A classic example is the pronunciation of the word "better" or "better".

So, some words just change in spelling and are pronounced the same way. An example is the word "organization" that Americans prefer to write with "s" with a "z" sound and the British use both forms of the word, with "s" or "z". Another examples are: "colour" than "color"; "defence" than "defense"; "centre" than "center". [you need to read the text to notice the difference, I'll send you this text, ok?]

However, the Americans and the British also have some words that differ from each other. Some example are:

"Flat" in British English and "appartament" in American English.

"University" in British and "college" in American.

"Holiday" than "vocation". "Biscuit" than "cookie", "fizzy drink" than "soda", "shop" than "store", "football" than "soccer" and so on.

That's it, it was a brief text, as I said it would be, ok? ;)

Thanks for listening, have a great one.