Hello! Hello! Hello everybody!
my name is Steve Ford and welcome to another English lesson
today we are going to be talking about the differences
between British and American English
and how the meanings can be completely different
so let's go
saying hello
in North America it's common to say, "hey, what's up?"
or just hey
now in the UK, especially London
they'll say, Alright!
or they could say, "alright, bruv?"
what is bruv, well bruv comes from bruva which comes from brother
which is the British version of bro
in the United States, so alright bruv!
hey bro!
yo, bro...what's up bro! yo what's up dog!
OK, here's another one
where the meaning will change
and that's when you say, "are you OK?"
IN the United States it means that there's something wrong with you
are you sick? are you OK?
um, you look a little sick, do you have a fever?
maybe we should take you to the doctor
that's what it means in American English
are you OK?
but when we go over to the UK
talking about, "are you OK?"
that changes, so it is acceptable over there
to say, "are you OK?" they're actually asking you
HI, are you OK? no they're not as....they're saying hi how are you
so when somebody comes up to me and they're using that
hi, are you OK?
I automatically think...what do you think? There's something wrong with me?
like...is there some cut on my face or something like that?
so the equivalent here would be like, "hi, how's it going?", "hi, what's new?", "what's up?"
so imagine you have a guy and a girl
going out on a date
and the guy asks the girl out to a pub
so he says, "fancy a pint?"
and she says, "oh, I'm easy?"
well, what she's saying in British English
is that that's no problem for her
it doesn't matter
it's OK for her
but if a female in North America were to say that's she's easy
it means that it's easy to take her to bed
if you know what I mean
so the meaning here totally changes
I'm easy and I'm easy
OK, the next one I thought was very appropriate
because I was listening to a taped phone call
from ownage pranks in case you haven't heard of it
and this guy, he;s phoning somebody in the UK
to tell him that his play station hasn't arrived
and the guy in the UK, he's so shocked
that his play station hasn't arrived
he says, "are you taking the piss?"
are you taking the mick/mickey?
and when he say, "are you taking the piss?"
that means: are you taking the piss out of me
are you taking the mick or mickey out of me?
that means are you joking with me? are you trying to take advantage of me?
now, of course in North America, mick..that's not going to really mean anything
maybe Mickey mouse
but if you say, "are you taking the piss?" it almost sounds like, "are you taking a piss?"
which means, "are you going (to) the bathroom?"
so there's no connection in meaning there
if you wanted to use the same meaning
as are you taking the mick?, then you could probably say
are you playing with me? are you shitting me?
OK, the last thing that I want to talk about
is a little cultural difference between, let's put
the UK and Canada in the same category, the same box
and then we'll put the United States in another box in this case
and this has to do with apologizing
because survey's have said that British people
apologize on average at least 8 times a day
and I am certain that for Canadians it's either that
or more than that we
we apologize for everything
you bump into us, you step on our foot and we're saying sorry
oh, sorry! sorry! sorry!
we're saying sorry before even anything happens
we're so polite and apologetic
in the US that's not gonna happen so much
that's only gonna happen if someone actually bumps into you
if somebody actually steps on your foot
and the person that does it is going to say sorry
but what happens here in Canada and I'm sure that it happens in the UK
because that's where we got a lot of our customs from
when somebody bumps into you, they cause the accident
many times Canadians will say sorry
(Does it) sound crazy?
it is crazy, but that's what we do
Ok everybody, I hope that you enjoyed this lesson
talking about some of the differences between the UK and US
in terms of expressions and vocabulary
and a little bit of culture
and I look forward to our next lesson
if you have a suggestion for our next lesson
you can leave it in the comment section below
or you can contact me
and you can also subscribe to my youtube channel
bye for now!