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US/UK English Differences | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5231 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 1 of 2 12 August 2011 at 7:38am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I've been teaching English in China for over a year now using textbooks from the UK. I've come across many difference in that time, many more than I was previously aware of. I thought it would be interesting to write some of them down and get everyone's reactions. Everything I will be writing comes from the New Concepts series of textbooks. Please feel free to contribute to my short list. I have excluded commonly known differences such as spelling and certain words.
Vocab: We all know truck and lorry, but I was surprised to find names of words being switched around. For example, using "torch" to mean "flashlight". What do they call a "torch"? Another example: "Biscuit" (cookie). Missing words: "I've got toothache" (I've got a toothache), "I had a letter in the mail yesterday" (I received a letter in the mail yesterday), "John went to hospital" (John went to the hospital). Leaving out "a" and "the" feels especially strange to me. On the other hand, "at home" and "in school" feel natural to me. Go figure. Grammar: "I have got a pencil" (I have a pencil). Am I the only one who "got" berrated as a child for using "got" in a sentence? I have, of course, come to the conclusion that this is an acceptable usage in the UK, but it feels a little foreign to use. I have to correct myself in class quite frequently. Instead of saying "Do you have a pencil?" I must say "Have you got a pencil?" Tense: It doesn't come up often but I sometimes get twisted around with tenses. What is the past tense of learn? Learned or learnt? How about Light? Lit or lighted? Not a big issue, but it does throw me for a loop at times. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 2 of 2 12 August 2011 at 10:39am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Torch. After all, what is a "flashlight" if not the modern battery-operated version of a stick with an oil-soaked rag on it? Just like "coach" -- we don't have horse-drawn coaches anymore, so the word has migrated to the internal combustion vehicle.
Compare "*I've got an AIDS".
Are you sure? I'd say "I got", not "I had". (also, it's "in the post" on this side of the Atlantic, not "mail").
If you say "in school", "at school" etc, then you already understand "to hospital", because "in school" refers to school institutionally, rather than as a simple location. Phone rings "I can't talk now, I'm at/in school" ie, I'm currently in (or going to) a class. I am actively involved in the business of schools. But you can add "the" to make it specifically a location. "There's a fire in the school." (You would be unlikely to say "there's a fire in school".) Similary, when we say "John went to hospital", John is clearly ill and so the hospital is an institution -- it is not important which hospital. Whereas "Sally went to the hospital to visit John" -- Sally isn't sick and doesn't need medical attention. She has to go to a particular hospital -- the hospital -- to see John.
If you children have to be corrected for using a form, it's proper language. See also "may I...?" (not used) and "must" vs "have to". A learner of English wants to learn to speakers of English, so what people say is far more important than what a few teachers think we should say.
Learned and learnt; burned and burnt; spelled and spelt -- both forms are acceptable on both sides of the Atlantic. Anyone who tells you that one is American and the other is British is ignoring millions of people who say it the other way round. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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