Hey, guys.
Tons of my followers have asked me to make a video comparing American and British English.
Today I'm giving you exactly that video.
I invited four of my friends to appear in this video,
so you can hear the main differences between American and British pronunciation.
I'd like to introduce you to those four friends.
My name is Stephanie.
My name is Nathan.
My name's Laura.
I'm Jez.
How old are they?
I'm 30 years old.
I'm 28.
How long have they been in Vietnam?
I've been in Vietnam for 18 months.
Five years, more or less. On and off.
About three years.
And the most important thing: where do they come from?
I'm from America.
United States of America.
I'm from England.
England.
I'll let you guys listen more now, and I'll analyze the most notable differences.
One more thing is that a lot of people have asked me what accent they should try to imitate.
If you ask me, you should imitate whichever accent you find easier.
Even if you plan to study abroad in the US, and you find the English accent easier to imitate,
then go ahead and speak British English.
There are very few times that Americans and Britons have trouble understanding one another.
To help you assess which accent is easier, I invited a Vietnamese friend to appear as well.
Her name's Ngoc,
she's 22 years old,
and she's 100% Vietnamese, so you can trust her assessment.
Okay, let's start. And from here on out, I'm going to speak English.
First, you're going to hear them say this sentence.
When you listen, pay attention to these two words.
Can you hear the difference?
The Americans just say /u:/,
but the English people add a /j/ sound in there, and they say /ju:/.
Listen again.
There are lots of other words like this, where Americans say /u:/ and English people say /ju:/.
So let's see which one Ngoc thinks is easier.
British accent is easier.
So I guess that's one point for British English.
Let's move on to the next sentence.
This time, pay attention to these three words.
This is one of the most well-known differences between American English and British English:
the pronunciation of Rs after vowels.
Listen again to how they say this word.
Americans pronounce the 'r' very clearly,
and we use the back of our tongue to make that sound.
But the British people basically just make the vowel sound longer,
and they don't really pronounce the 'r' at all.
If an 'r' comes between two vowel sounds, like in the word "very,"
then English people pronounce it basically the same as Americans.
But if the 'r' comes after a vowel and isn't followed by another vowel, like in these words,
then English people don't really pronounce the 'r'.
So what does our Vietnamese friend think?
So your vote goes for . . .
American English.
All right, moving on.
In this sentence, pay attention to these two words.
This is another very well-known difference:
the pronunciation of the letter 't' between vowel sounds.
The English people say it the way you would expect: /t/.
But the Americans say it more like /d/.
Listen again to how they say this word.
Now, my American friends surprised me with this one,
because I thought they would say this word like /ˈsen ər/.
But they didn't.
So I asked them if they always say /ˈsent ər/ or if they sometimes say /ˈsen ər/.
And they really weren't sure.
I don't know!
I don't know anymore.
So this shows you that our accents are not absolute.
We might pronounce the same word in a different way depending on the situation.
Anyway, you can see this difference in a lot of different words.
So let's see which way Ngoc thinks is easier.
It's easier to pronounce British English.
Next sentence.
Pay attention to these three words.
Okay, this is another very, very well-known difference.
For a lot of words that have an 'a' in the middle,
Americans pronounce the 'a' the way you would expect: /æ/.
But British people pronounce it more like /ɑ:/.
Listen to how they say this word.
Now, the difficulty with this difference
is that there's no real rule for when British people say /ɑ:/ and when they say /æ/.
For example, they pronounce this word with an /ɑ:/ sound,
and this word with an /æ/ sound.
Anyway, let's see what Ngoc thinks.
Of course American English.
All right, moving on.
This time, pay attention to the stress of these three words.
Did you hear that?
The Americans put the stress on the second syllable,
and the English people put the stress on the first.
Listen again to how they say this word.
The thing these three words have in common is they all come from French,
and there are a lot of other French words used in English which follow the same rule:
stress on the second syllable in America,
stress on the first in England.
And which one is easier?
It's the same.
Okay, here's the next sentence.
Pay attention to these two words.
Now, this is a small difference, but it is interesting.
In some words with the letter 'e',
Americans pronounce it with an /i:/ sound,
and English people pronounce it with an /e/ sound.
And there are some others which are the opposite:
Americans say /e/ and British people say /i:/.
Now, when I filmed this, I noticed something that I hadn't planned for.
Listen to how they say this word.
Can you hear that?
The Americans say /ɑ:/, and the English people say it more like /ɔ:/.
Unfortunately, when I noticed this, I had already filmed my American friends,
and I didn't have time to film them again.
So instead, listen to Laura saying a few more words like this,
and compare it with how I say them.
So which does Ngoc think is easier, /ɑ:/ or /ɔ:/.
American English.
Again.
Okay, this is the last sentence.
In this one, pay attention to the intonation.
For "yes/no" questions, both accents have a rising intonation,
but the difference is that Americans tend to have a steady rise.
Listen.
But English people tend to have a quick rise and then a little fall.
But this is another case where my friends surprised me.
Listen to Jez. His intonation sounds very American.
Did you hear that?
He had a very steady rise.
So once again, this shows you that our accents aren't absolute.
So which intonation does Ngoc think is easier?
American English.
Well, it looks like American English wins.
But that's just Ngoc's opinion. Maybe you feel differently.
And now to finish, I want you to listen to my friends imitating the accent of the other country.
I can't do it.
That's awful!
This is so bad! I was doing it so much better the other day.