Can someone please tell me the main differences between British and American English?

Answer 1

yes, spelling and accents.

When America was founded a lovely man named Mr. Webster who writes the most famous dictionary over there thought he would make life easier and change the spellings of words so that they were written more like they sounded such as check instead of cheque or color instead of colour.

Answer 2

American English is a dialect of British English. The definition of a dialect is that the two languages are at the same time comprehensible, with some minor variations in pronunciation and words. an identical may be pronounced of the diversities between Peninsular Spanish and Latin American Spanish. Or French from France, and Quebequois. There are some words, some spellings, and a brilliant distinction in slang and accessory, yet while human beings talk needless to say, they might understand one yet another.

Answer 3

British English has changed while American English is rooted in the past when the founding fathers went over. Quite a lot of the grammar and some words remind you of Shakespeare or even Chaucer.

There is a strong influence of German words and speech patterns on American English (German was almost voted the national language of the USA during the formation of the constitution!).

It is a bit like South American Spanish and Spanish Spanish - they diverged around 200 years ago.

Answer 4

There are actually many more differences between British and American English than most people realize. The obvious differences are the accent, the spelling, and the few common vocabulary differences that most people are aware of. For example, most people know that in the U.S. people say "elevator", while in the U.K. it's called a "lift". But there are many, many words that either mean one thing in the U.S. and something else in U.K., or that are used in only one of those two types of Englilsh and don't even exist in the other. Check out this site for a good list of many of these words:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_words_having_different_meanings_in_American_and_British_English

In addition to all of these things, there are even some grammatical differences. For example, the past participle of the verb "to get" is "gotten" in American English. But in British English, it's "got". Also the past tense of "to smell" is "smelled" in American English but "smelt" in British English. These are just a few examples of the many differences.

Answer 5

Well, as far as accents are concerned, there are a wide range of accents in both America and in the UK. There are some English accents (I think in the northwest) that sound like American, and some of the accents in the northeast USA sound English.

The biggest differences are in vocabulary, the British say jelly where Americans say Jell-O and jam instead of jelly. They say "mate" instead of "buddy" and "partner" instead of "mate". You can find some tongue-in-cheek dictionaries to translate between the two.

American and British English have two different standardized systems of spelling and grammar which are only slightly different and completely mutually intelligible.

That's just the beginning, there's also African English, Australian English, Caribbean English, NZ English, Japanese English (yes, they have their own dialect!) and more.

Answer 6

Americans made great improvements in the English language, except for the French words that are used as if they were English.

Answer 7

The main difference is that we Americans developed our own accents. We spell a few words differently, for example, the Brits like to add a "u" to words that end in "or", as in colour. And Americans reverse the "re" to "er" in words that have those letters at the end, like centre becomes center.

Answer 8

The only differences that I can see is the spelling of some words and possibly some instances of grammar

Answer 9

That is the main difference.

Answer 10

American English is essentially a bastardised form of English.