50 British Vs American Word Pronunciations - Part 1

For some Friday night fun, the wife and I did a comparison of how we pronounce certain words, British versus American style. Here are fifty such words.


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[ericreese]

To an American, the difference between a "vace" and a "vaas" is typically the price.

[lizainuk]

As a Japanese person, British pronunciation for Nissan is correct as Car manufacturer. American ways sounds like older brother in Japanese.

[mikemullen]

My father was a US Navy captain. He once served a joint NATO staff in Norfolk with a British officer and a southern US officer. After a particularly long session of southernisms, the British officer turned to the southerner and said, "Commander Smith, there are two languages in NATO, French and English. You really must learn one or the other."

[atheistlinguist]

It's so true about "water, " though! I'm American, but my family is friends with a British couple and their son. Many years ago, when the son and I were both kids, they visited an American restaurant, and the boy wanted to order some water. I'm not sure if the waitress genuinely didn't understand or just found his accent cute, but it took him several repetitions of "water" in his native pronunciation before he finally snapped and almost shouted the word in his best imitation of the American pronunciation. It's one of our favorite stories to recount to this day! At one point, if I remember correctly, the amused waitress actually called over a co-worker to share in her mirth, which is why I suspect that, if her confusion was ever genuine, it was only so initially. A bit patronizing, perhaps, but his parents never seemed to mind.

Anyway, now that I actually have some linguistic training, I realize just how much sense it makes for "water" to be a challenge for some. It combines three major differences between British and American sound systems into one word. First, there's the sound of the 'a.' The British version of that vowel is one that's been subsumed by another in America. In short, it's a noticeably more open-mouthed sound in the US than in the UK. Then, there's the classic American weakening of the 't' into a more /d/-like sound (though not technically an actual /d/, strictly speaking). This happens anytime a /t/ is lodged between a stressed vowel and an unstressed vowel (e.g. "letter, " "butter, " "betting, " etc). Finally, there's the issue of rhoticity. British English is non-rhotic, which basically means any 'r' that would otherwise come at the end of a syllable is dropped entirely. American English, on the other hand, is rhotic, meaning we reliably pronounce those terminal R's. In "water, " it's as if all three of those differences have teamed up against the poor speaker!

[VanAdventuresBavaria]

Now you know how Germans feel.
We have three types of English teachers.
Native English speaking, native American speaking and native speaking German.
Ultimately, you get a funny mix of everything. English, American and Wrong.

[clarab]

As an Italian, the way American people pronounce “Parmesan” actually makes more sense because it resembles the original pronounciation. Parmesan is “Parmigiano” in Italian so if you pronounce it the american way you can kinda hear the “g” in there

[kkerr]

My daughter is American and my SIL is British. They live in Texas and my 6 year old grandson has a combination of Texas drawl and British accent. He’ll be going along speaking in a Texas drawl and all of a sudden a British word will jump into the middle of a sentence like gare-age or to-mah-toe! 😂

[FoolSufferingFools]

“Lieutenant” is an interesting case. Of course it came into English from French, but it did so at a time when U and V were basically the same letter, so if you didn’t know the word you had to guess which way to read that letter. As it happened, everyone guessed wrong and read the word as if it were “lievtenant.” As U and V became more clearly distinct, that pronunciation of “leftenant” still remained. But in America, where the English colonists had close proximity to many French settlers, the pronunciation was adjusted back so that it sounded more consistent with “in lieu.”

[linnea]

I'm from Sweden, and this is so confusing. 😭😂
I think I'll just have to accept the fact that whatever English I will be speaking will be mixed and vary from time to time. Everything from spelling and pronunciation, to word choices like elevator and lift.

[keg]

Notre Dame?

Well, “Noter Dame” is the college, and has the quarterback. “Notra Dahm” is the cathedral, and has the hunchback.

[elultimo]

I'm "medicare" age and have a Masters Degree, but never saw "aitch'' as a word---I stopped the video and looked up the definition: Oh, they mean "H, " the letter.

[cuttwice]

Note on "Herb": I recently read a 14th century cookbook and the word is spelled "erb".

[obi-wankenobi]

Every 200 miles you travel in America you’ll probably hear “water” being pronounced differently

[davidcfrogley]

English has several pairs of words where the emphasis changed to distinguish between the noun and the verb. E.g., PROgress (noun) vs. proGRESS (verb); fiNANCE (verb) vs. FInance (noun); adDRESS (verb) vs. ADdress (noun), though we don't always use them both or in that way.

[ChestyBPuller]

I will never understand where someone’s accent goes when they sing. They all tend to sing with an American accent!🤷🏼‍♂️🤯

[cydrych]

My Dad was from the western mountains of VA close to the KY and TN boarders. When we went to Boston on vacation/holiday I had to translate between the kid working the Macdonald’s counter and my Dad. Both were speaking English and had no idea what the other was saying.

[foufamsadek]

I’m from Tunisia and the British way is closer to the way we say it !

[BKLNHobo]

Chile, chili and chilly are completely different words.

[odbhut]

Progress is an interesting example of the rule, where we emphasize the first syllable for the noun but the last syllable for the verb. Other examples include produce, address, conduct, or contest.

[melodyszadkowski]

I was stationed at Exmouth, Western Australia at a RAN/USN communications base. We had a running pronunciation contest because the man in charge was Aussie, most of the worker bees were American and the man who ran the antenna maintenance crew was Scottish. Good times that I miss these many years later.