American English

My country Malaysia was once colonised by the British. Hence the English that is taught in school has been British from then until now. With the advent of television, students in this country are exposed to more American films than British ones. As such, American English creeps into their essays as they don't know how to differentiate between British English and American English.

In this post, I hope to be able to enlighten local students on the differences between the two. For one thing, they differ in the spelling of certain words.

These include colour/color, favour/favor, favourite/favorite, sulphur/sulfur, and travelling/traveling.

For another, pronunciation differs too. For example, 'chance' is pronounced as 'chair ends' and 'can't' is sounded like 'care endt'.

The terms referring to things also differ. The following are some the words which mean the same, the former being English and the latter American.

1 biscuit - cookie

2 lift - elevator

3 lorry - truck

4 aeroplane - airplane

5 petrol - gas

6 break - recess

7 holiday - vacation

8 mobile phone -cellphone