If your native language is British English how do you understand British English? How do your parents teach you British English? If foreigners learn (or study) British English (or American English) what misunderstandings will arise?
There shouldn't be any "misunderstandings". It's pretty much the same except for spelling. ie color vs colour, customise vs customize...
Yes that more or less sums it. In India, we used to use British English with the same things that you have said. However, most computer users are too lazy to know the difference and use the default spell check (which is english-US). That can work in informal communications or 2nd class documents (both the sender and the recipient may have the same level of English writing skills), but for a well produced report/doc, you must use the Oxford/Cambridge/Economist style guide and UK spellings.
Same way your parents taught your native language: by example. You should ask your parents how did they teach you your native language. I'm pretty sure they didn't send you to Oxford or Cambridge for that. I'm sure your native language is not en-GB, so how did you learn English? What misunderstandings arose when you learned English? Why did you learn English? Is it beneficial to you? Why is it beneficial?
This may appear like semantics/nit-picking , but in linguistics first languages are said to be " acquired " , not learned. Subsequent languages require active engagement ( ie " cracking the books " ) There is an important distinction.
Not quite - it depends when they are "acquired", Mutoid... "Two countries divided by the same language", as the proverb (re. US and UK) goes... Search on the net and ye shall find many, many differences, not just "it's all the same", sooooo....
Call me old fashioned , if you will , but I'm neither inclined nor worthy to question the wisdom of the great Noam Chomsky , on this subject . Of course , other folk may feel differently .....
Some things are also pronounced differently. Some Americans really emphasise the 'or' in words like 'color', so it sounds like cull-lore, whereas in British English (or English English, aka proper English ), it's more cull-lerr. I've also noticed they can't seem to pronounce the word 'herb', and that seems to be fairly common. The 'h' isn't silent, but they seem to believe it is! Actually, it's almost a strained 'erb' sound, not even just 'erbs' for herbs. I would very much hate having the name Craig, Tara, and especially Aaron, to name a few. They pronounce these as 'Creg' (sounds like Greg), Terror (yes, they get Terror from Tata, most Tara's aren't that much of a terror), and worst of all for the poor guys called Aaraon, they prounce it Erin. Erin's are girls name. There's also words like 'anaemic', which they spell 'anemic', as with other 'ae' words. The 'ae' is almost like a separate letter in British English, it's an 'e' sound but signfies it as an 'eeee' sound, not an 'e' sound like in pedal. So, it's 'aneemic', just like encyclopaedia is 'encyclopeedia' sound, not 'encyclopedia' as in 'pedia' sounds like the 'ped' in 'pedal. Then there's the pronounciation of 'z', where for example, they say 'zeebra' whereas in British Enlgish, the 'zeb' is like 'ped' in pedal, with 'z' being sounding like 'sed'. Hard to put it into words , but remembering that 'zebra' is pronounced that way in English, not as 'zeebra' like the Americans prounce it, as there is no 'ae'. With words ending in 'ise' 'ising' or 'ised' they use a 'ize', 'izing', or 'ized' instead. The use of 's' in English has a more neutral sound, whereas with 'z' it is more emphasised. With the influence of American English these things aren't really known. Also keep in mind the American gallon is different to the UK gallon, and that they're too stubborn to move with the rest of the world and go to metric .
Tell me about it! As a Hispanophone I have had many trouble with oral English lol If you native English speakers have trouble in your own language, now imagine me on a conversation.
Yes, but that can happen from town to town, region to region. It doesn't have to be different countries...
Yes, this is very true and sometimes besides I don't understand the meaning of a phrase or word, I don't even understand or hear the pronunciation.
I did make a couple of typos in my last post, a result of haste. Wouldn't normally matter but seeing as it was discussing bad spelling and diction...
Its same American & British but the pronunciation is something different 'phonetic (they often do not say a word the same way it is spelled)' or heavy 'accent' and to answer the original question, I prefer British English because I like the British English . I favour that style over and above the American style. It has more flair to it, I think. The difference is not just a quibble over spelling and grammar, I think, but rather a (difficult to articulate) difference in style. So I prefer to read "se" to "ze" (as in analyse) and "ou" to "o" (as in colour).
A book says the letters of Phoenicia and others. The book says the English letters were hieroglyphics. Do you know others? Somethings in English are regular.For example,watch and watched adding ed. But somethings are not regular.For example,see and saw. Why?
@mdlgaofei: here's what you need to know: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/story-of-human-language.html
I'm a foreigner.I saw Internet show some misunderstandings. Such as "cannot......too......". For example,some people translate "ζδΉεβ to "how to do"