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Accents British accent tends to be rhotic, meaning the letter ?R? is pronounced hard, whereas American accent tends to be non-rhotic. However, within both Great Britain and the USA there are several accents so in essence it is incorrect to speak about the British or the American accents. Loosely speaking, spoken British English (?B.E.?) sounds more ?proper? and ?sophisticated? than American English (?A.E.?). Tenses In A.E. recent actions that have an effect on the present moment can be expressed both using present perfect and past simple tenses, for example ?I have eaten and now I?m full? and ?I ate and now I?m full?. In B.E., only the use of present perfect tense is allowed, and thus, the second example sentence above would be incorrect in B.E. There are other differences related to tenses as well. Some irregular verbs have two different forms in the past tenses, such as dreamt/dreamed, learnt/learned and spoilt/spoiled. These different forms are acceptable both in B.E. and A.E., but the regular form is the norm in B.E. and the irregular form is generally preferred in A.E. Spelling Several words that have different spellings in B.E. and A.E. and most of the spelling differences fall into the following categories: Latin-derived spellings: Letter Combination Example B.E. A.E. B.E. A.E. -our -or rumour rumor -re -er fibre fiber -ce -se offence offense Greek-derived spellings: Letter Combination Example B.E. A.E. B.E. A.E. - ise -ize organise organize -yse -yze paralyse paralyze -ogue -og dialogue dialog - ae -e mediaeval medieval -oe -e oestrogen estrogen Prepositions Some prepositions also differ in B.E. and A.E. For example, in Great Britain sportsmen play in teams, whereas American athletes play on teams. Another example, using B.E. you would say ?write to me soon?, but using the A.E. you would simply say ?write me soon?. Vocabulary Some words are different altogether in B.E. and A.E. and some example of those are: B.E. A.E. barrister attorney caravan trailer torch flashlight sweets candy Possession There are two forms to express possession in English, ?have? or ?have got?. For example, ?Do you have a dog?? or ?Have you got a dog?? Both of these above forms are correct in both B.E. and A.E., but the ?have got? form is favored in B.E. while the ?have? form is favored in A.E. Time Telling In order to express 11:15, a person speaking B.E. would say ?quarter past eleven?. Speaking A.E. the same time would be expressed as ?quarter after eleven? or even ?a quarter past eleven?. 30 minutes after the hour is typically called half past in both languages. When indicating a specific time in writing, in B.E. you would use a point in between the numbers corresponding to hours and minutes, for example 8.37. In A.E. you should use a colon instead, 8:37. The Verb Get In B.E. the past participle of get is got, but in A.E. it is gotten. So, the sentence ?she has got a pay raise? in (B.E.) would be ?she has gotten a pay raise? in A.E. There is an exception to this rule, it is when got mean to have. Thus, the following sentence would be the same in both B.E. and A.E.: ?she has got two dogs? (= ?she has two dogs?). Collective Nouns Collective nouns like government, team, family, jury, etc can take both singular and plural verbs in B.E., but in A.E. they normally take a singular verb. Therefore, the sentence ?the jury meets tomorrow? is correct in both B.E. and A.E., but ?the jury meet tomorrow? is only correct in B.E. References http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_differences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences http://esl.about.com/od/toeflieltscambridge/a/dif_ambrit.htm http://www.diffen.com/difference/American_English_vs_British_English http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/british-american.htm http://EzineArticles.com/642477