There is an old saying that America and Britain are "two nations divided by a common language." My British friend still tells me, "You don't speak English. You speak American."
But are American and British English really so different?
Vocabulary
The most noticeable difference between American and British English is vocabulary. There are hundreds of everyday words that are different. For example,Americans go on vacation, while Brits go on holidays. New Yorkers live in apartments; Londoners live in flats.
There are far more examples than we can talk about here. Fortunately, most Americans and Brits can usually guess the meaning through the context of a sentence.
Auxiliary verbs
There are a few grammatical differences between the two varieties of English. A grammar difference between American and British English relates to auxiliary verbs. For example, "I shall go home now." Americans know what shall means, but rarely use it in conversation. It seems very formal. Americans would probably use "I will go home now."
In question form, a Brit might say, "Shall we go now?" while an American would probably say, "Should we go now?"
Spelling
There are hundreds of minor spelling differences between British and American English.
You can see in the American spelling of words like color (from colour), honor (from honour), and labor (from labour).
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