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Which English Should You Study American or British

Which English Should You Study American or British
Which English Should You Study American or British

If you are a new learner of English language and don’t know which English should you study American or British, then you are in the right place because in the article below I am going to differentiate between American and British English, then you can choose whether you should learn American or British English. 

Which English Should You Study American or British

Indeed, the English language was first introduced to the Americas by British colonization, beginning in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Similarly, the language spread to numerous other parts of the world as a result of British trade and colonisation elsewhere and the spread of the former British Empire, which, by 1921, held sway over a population of 470–570 million people, approximately a quarter of the world’s population at that time.

Morover, there are a flee over 7.5 billion English speakers in the world and that is 1 in every 4 world citizen. In addition, its said that there are 160 distinct English dialects throughout the world and therefore most of the English learners face problem in communicating and understanding native English speakers. 

Now, if you are new to learning English as a second language and can’t decide which one should you learn American or British English, don’t worry, read all the differences between American and British English below and then decide which one you need to learn American or British English.

Difference Between American and British English

Differences Between the two include pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, idioms and formatting of dates and numbers. Here the major differenc is about the pronunciation, because pronunciation differce from rigion to rigion, but if you are a new learner, try to learn accurate pronunciation either British or American. 

American and British English Pronunciation Differences

Differences in pronunciation between American English and British English can be divided in Accent, Pronunciation of individual words and Superscript.

  • differences in the pronunciation of individual words in the lexicon (i.e. phoneme distribution). In this article, transcriptions use Received Pronunciation (RP) to represent BrE and General American (GAm) to represent AmE.

In the following discussion:

  • superscript A2 after a word indicates that the BrE pronunciation of the word is a common variant in AmE.
  •  B2superscript after a word indicates that the AmE pronunciation of the word is a common variant in BrE.

  • A1 superscript after a word indicates that the pronunciation given as BrE is also the most common variant in AmE.
  • superscript B1 after a word indicates that the pronunciation given as AmE is also the most common variant in BrE.

Some of these differences ideas are based on Wikipedia.

American and British English Grammatical Differences

One of the other most notable differences between American English and British English is their differences in grammar. These differences are in subject-verb agreement, verbs, use of morphology, use of tenses, verbal auxiliaries, transitivity, complementation, presence or absence of syntactic elements, definite article, phrasal verbs, miscellaneous grammatical differences, and the other structure are mostly the same.

Differences Between American And British Vocabulary and Spelling

British English and American English have significantly different vocabulary and usage. There are different words for the same concept, or the same word has different meanings. More than a thousand words have different meanings or usages in British and American English. check out here some of the most common words used differently: 

American and British English Punctuation Differences

There are a few differences between American and British punctuation. When writing you have to focus the audience whether they are American or British. The differences are as follows:

Titles:

In American English, Mr., Ms., and Mrs. all have periods. In British, however, no periods are used.

Time:

When denoting time, the British system uses periods—noon would be 12.00—while the American system uses colons (12:00).

Quotes:

British style uses single quotation marks for initial quotations, and then double quotes when there is a quotation inside the quotation. The British also put punctuation that is not part of the quotation outside the quotation marks. Americans do the opposite on both counts. For example:

  • ‘I enjoy learning English’, said the student. (British)
  • One of his sentences that he says “man is the architect of his own fate.” (British)
  • “I enjoy learning English,” said the student (American)
  • One of his sentences that he say, “man is the architect of his own fate.” (American)

American and British Date Differences

When writing a date, Americans put month, day and year in that order. So, December 25, 2015 would be 12/25/2015. The British (and most of the rest of the world’s) practice is to list the day, month, then year. So, the same date would be 25/12/2015.

 Comparison of American and British English?

American English is spreading faster than British English. Its said that in internet and television broadcasts alone, the United States controlled 75% of the world’s programming. The spread of American English began in the decades after World War II. Now among the roughly 360 million native English speakers, the American version is spoken by about 63%. 

Number of American English Speakers

According to Wikipedia number of American native speaker is now more than 225 million, in which obviously the USA having the higher percentage than other counties.

Number of British English Speakers

Now more than 360 million English native speakers are in the world. As mentioned above 225 million people speak in American English, hence 135 million British English native speakers are in the world. According to this number from 360 million English native speakers, 62.5% are American English speakers and 37.5% are British English speakers.

Conclusion:

I discussed the all differences between American and British English also the number native speakers in American English and British English. Now it’s up to you which English should you study American or British. Moreover, please ask your questions and type your feedback about the article in the comment section below.

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