hi there welcome back to my channel learn academic english in today's video i'm going to show you
the differences in spelling between british and american english and the reason i bring this up is
that if you're an english learner it's important for you to choose what type of english are you
learning it's my opinion that it's an important choice for you to make because there are enough
differences in vocabulary spelling and especially pronunciation that it makes your task easier when
you choose one type of english to learn if you're going to learn american english then you need to
learn american english vocabulary pronunciation and spelling you don't need to worry about
learning both the british and american ones and then later when your english gets to a very high
level then you can go back and learn the british ones as well if you're interested in doing that
i also wanted to mention that it's important to note that differences in language doesn't mean
that one is better or worse than the other it's normal for language to change this especially
happens over time and distance so different types of english have arisen as people colonized and
moved to different parts of the world and it doesn't mean that one is worse than the other
these these changes in spelling are actually very normal when we think about how languages change
over time you're going to notice that the american spellings some of them are more simplified than
the british spellings and that's also a normal process that happens in languages over time now
before we begin i wanted to mention why do we have some of these differences well one of the reasons
is that english comes partly from french and some of the french spellings have been retained
and as english has changed in the united states some of those french spellings have been dropped
or simplified before we get into these differences in spelling i'd like to remind you to please give
this video a like and leave a comment if you find it helpful thank you so much so let's begin the
first group of words we're going to look at is a very common group and that's the words that end in
o you are in british spelling and o r in american for example common words like neighbor labor and
harbor these are going to end in oh you are in the british spelling but american spelling is
going to be or okay next we have some past tense verbs that will have a t at the end in british
spelling sometimes you can see that some past tense verbs end in a t as in misspelt or dreamt
but in the american spelling we use the ed spelling okay the next one is some words like
program and ton and cancelled that have a double consonant and e so for program and ton in american
spelling it's simplified to program and ton for this one when we have the verb cancel ends in l
when it's made into the past tense or the past participle the l is doubled and then ed
but in american spelling we don't double the l in that case so we have just cancelled
okay in the next group these are words that end in ce in british spelling as in offense
license and defense and in american spelling they end in an s as in offense license and defense
the next group is r e in british spelling as in center and liter in american spelling
we just spell it with er as in center and leader next we have words that end in s e
for british english civilize analyze itemize and in american spelling these are spelled with a z
and finally i have a group of words here and there are more examples but i have a group of words here
that are basically different changes but all of them are simplifications
in english for example airplane in american english we spell it airplane
plow we spell it p-l-o-w plow draft we spell it the way it sounds draft
jewelry a little bit simpler in american english jewelry and finally maneuver this is definitely a
connection to the french here with the spelling and in american english we spell it maneuver
and this is another example of the rhere that we saw here changing to er you may notice sometimes
there will be some of these british spellings this is especially common with this one so a lot of
americans actually will use this one and you can also hear some americans use the t ending on verbs
i don't know exactly why this happened but some americans may mix some of their spellings but
it's very rare for us to ever use this one or these spellings that would be considered
maybe more complicated um and definitely we never use these in american english and if you're
studying or working in the us and you're using a computer program that has american english on it
you'll also notice that it may correct your spelling for these british spellings so if you've
learned british english in the past and then you want to use american english it is important for
you to relearn these spellings because in american english these are what are considered standard
if you have any questions let me know but i would love to know from you
what differences can you think of between british and american spelling because there
are more examples than just these i'll put these categories down in the description box below
to help you remember but let me know what other examples you can think of
let me know if you have questions take care and i'll see you back here next time