dimecres, 15 de setembre del 2010

British English and north-American English (3)

Apart from vocabulary, there are other small differences between these two versions of the English language. One question is spelling with American English often offering a simpler option. For example, color instead of colour, or traveling instead of travelling. Prepositional differences include examples such as “on the weekend” (USA) instead of “at”, or “on the team” instead of “in”, or “Will you write me?” instead of “Will you write to me?”


American English sometimes uses the Past Simple where British people would use the Present Perfect. For instance, “I lost my key”, rather than “I’ve lost my key”; “I didn’t tell him yet” rather than “I haven’t told him yet”, or “I just saw her” rather than “I’ve just seen her”.

To finish this brief glimpse into these interesting differences, we would just like to point out that the verb “to enjoy” seems to have evolved and become intransitive even in the UK thanks to Hollywood and its tendency to cry out “Enjoy!” with no one asking “Enjoy ... what?”.
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2 comentaris:

  1. Unknown17 de setembre del 2010, a les 0:13

    Where I'm from (Canada) we go with the British more often than American.
    CD

    ResponElimina
  2. Brian17 de setembre del 2010, a les 0:28

    Ok, thanks for letting us know that. I wasn't sure, as our awareness of things Canadian is quite limited. As you probably know, US English dominates via Hollywood, and always gets a mention in English text books for language learners.
    We have prepared a short list of Australian words for a future post, and were intending to continue travelling (virtually) the globe for more language differences. I'll see if Wikipedia has anything to offer us on Canadian English ....

    ResponElimina

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