English Variation From Country to Country Lesson

[AVN]

Hello everyone!

So this is partially selfish but also partially I think it could help other ALTs and our students.

So as many of us know textbooks tend to focus on either American English (most common) or British English (less common) but not a balance of both.
I am planning to teach my high school students a lesson on why English varies and then I will focus on some of the larger English speaking countries (I couldn't possibly cover them all) and play jeopardy.

What I'm looking for in this thread is to collect certain expressions, spellings, meanings etc that are either specific to one country or not universal.

For example I am Canadian so we spell colour with a "u" and centre "re" not "er". We also you the word "eh?" in the way Japanese people say "ne?"

Anything else you could contribute would be great!

[puredistraction]

In New Zealand, we use British (or Common Wealth) spelling (colour / favourite / centre etc).

By certain meanings / expressions, do you mean slang/colloquialisms? There's so much out there that I wouldn't know where to start! NZ slang is rather similar to Australian slang though, and both have common roots with British slang.

For now though, some common slang expressions are:

'Sweet as.' (That's fine / Ok / Sure / No problem.)
'I reckon!' (I agree with you.)
'Not even.' (That's not true / I disagree)
'Bro.' (affectionate term for a friend, can also be used as an interjection, eg 'Bro! Did you see that car go past? It was awesome!')
'Cheers.' (Thank you. - can be made more casual as 'chur')

In terms of words that have a different meaning to their equivalent in American English, the only specific one I can think of is 'biscuit' vs 'cookie'. In NZ, they are pretty much the same , but we usually say 'biscuit', not 'cookie.' The alternative meaning of biscuit (ie in the US) is something we would liken to a scone.

Also, the term for general confectionery is 'lollies,' with the singular being 'lolly'. It's similar to the American English, 'candy.' Chocolate is generally not included under 'lollies'.

We also use 'eh' (also spelled 'aye') similar to the Japanese 'ne'.
We refer to our mothers informally as 'Mum' (not Mom), and fathers as 'Dad'.

NZ English also incorporates Maori words, such as 'Aotearoa' (the Maori name for NZ), 'kumara' (sweet potato),'whanau' (family), 'mana' (charisma), 'tapu' (sacred).

Hope that was somewhat helpful!

[KIKKI.K]

In NZ and I believe the UK too, we would say "I couldn't care less" rather than "I could care less" (American English)

Also, something which confused me for the longest time, in America, or maybe Canada too, if you say "I lucked out" it means you were lucky, but in NZ, if you say that, it means you weren't lucky.

American English seems to use a lot less prepositions than NZ English, though I think this is (unfortunately) changing due to the prevalence of American TV shows....

In British English it is more normal to say "different from/to" rather than in American English where they say "different than"

[AVN]

In New Zealand, we use British (or Common Wealth) spelling (colour / favourite / centre etc).

By certain meanings / expressions, do you mean slang/colloquialisms? There's so much out there that I wouldn't know where to start! NZ slang is rather similar to Australian slang though, and both have common roots with British slang.

For now though, some common slang expressions are:

'Sweet as.' (That's fine / Ok / Sure / No problem.)
'I reckon!' (I agree with you.)
'Not even.' (That's not true / I disagree)
'Bro.' (affectionate term for a friend, can also be used as an interjection, eg 'Bro! Did you see that car go past? It was awesome!')
'Cheers.' (Thank you. - can be made more casual as 'chur')

In terms of words that have a different meaning to their equivalent in American English, the only specific one I can think of is 'biscuit' vs 'cookie'. In NZ, they are pretty much the same , but we usually say 'biscuit', not 'cookie.' The alternative meaning of biscuit (ie in the US) is something we would liken to a scone.

Also, the term for general confectionery is 'lollies,' with the singular being 'lolly'. It's similar to the American English, 'candy.' Chocolate is generally not included under 'lollies'.

We also use 'eh' (also spelled 'aye') similar to the Japanese 'ne'.
We refer to our mothers informally as 'Mum' (not Mom), and fathers as 'Dad'.

NZ English also incorporates Maori words, such as 'Aotearoa' (the Maori name for NZ), 'kumara' (sweet potato),'whanau' (family), 'mana' (charisma), 'tapu' (sacred).

Hope that was somewhat helpful!

Thank you that is helpful
How do you pronounce "Aye"? Is it the same as Eh?
Also for Sweet As would you say it means something like how we say "cool" to mean ok no problem and awesome?

[puredistraction]

'aye' is pretty much the same as 'eh' I think, (in that it's pronounced to rhyme with the Japanese 'ne'), but I almost never see it written as 'eh'.

And yeah, 'sweet as' is pretty much an all purpose positive phrase:
'We won the game!' 'Oh sweet as!'
'How was your day?' 'It was sweet as, I got some hokey pokey icecream.'
'Can you do me a favour?' 'Yeah, sweet as.'

'as' can be attached to any adjective and used as an amplifier too, for example:
'I'm hungry as.' - I'm starving.
'That new car is mean as.' - That car is really cool/awesome. (mean = cool).
'Shut the door, it's cold as out there.' - Shut the door because it's really cold outside.

An alternative to 'sweet as' is 'choice', which is used in almost the same way, but it only means 'awesome/cool/great/good', and doesn't extend to 'no problem.'

[haku]

I think South African English is fairly similar to New Zealand English i.e. derived from British English but has its own local flavour. We tend to use British spelling although pronunciation is sometimes different. E.g. we spell "yoghurt" but most people say "yogurt" (as in the U.S.), and we say soccer instead of football. We also use words you might be unfamiliar with, for example "takkies" for sneakers, "lekker" or "kif" for nice/cool, "dagga" for cannabis, "braai" instead of barbecue. Some other favourites are "now now" to mean "just now" although it actually means sometime indefinitely in the future, and "robots" for traffic lights.

You might also be surprised, the following English words all originate from South Africa (mostly from Afrikaans) - apartheid, aardvark, trek, commando, veld, impala, ubuntu (as in the Linux distribution).

[Eliza_FukuokaPA]

In New Zealand, we use British (or Common Wealth) spelling (colour / favourite / centre etc).

Also, the term for general confectionery is 'lollies,' with the singular being 'lolly'. It's similar to the American English, 'candy.' Chocolate is generally not included under 'lollies'.

We also use 'eh' (also spelled 'aye') similar to the Japanese 'ne'.
We refer to our mothers informally as 'Mum' (not Mom), and fathers as 'Dad'.

Oh, how I miss the Kiwi-lingo!

It's interesting to notice how different some of the variations can be.
One of my JET friends from America refused to take lolly = candy, and tried to convince me that 'lolly' is only used as part of 'lollipop'

And thank you so much for the point about 'Mum'!
Years ago a friend and I back in NZ almost got into a heated argument about Mum vs. Mom

[DavidPC]

Fun!

I'm from Newfoundland, an island province in Atlantic Canada. Newfoundland English is quite well-known for being distinct from the average Canadian English. According to Wikipedia, many Newfoundland dialects are similar to the West Country dialects of West Country, England, particularly the city of Bristol and counties Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset, while others resemble dialects of Ireland's southeast, particularly Waterford, Wexford, Kilkenny and Cork.

We even have our own dictionary

Some of my favourite Newfie-isms:

Luh!: used to draw attention to something or or someone, often by pointing.
G'wan b'y!: meaning, "No, really?" or "Are you joking?"
Get on the go: "Let's go"
Wadda ya'at b'y?: "What are you doing?"
Eh b'y: to agree with someone
Yes b'y: Used to sarcastically mean "yeah right"

We also say "Mum" a lot instead of "Mom." And when referring to our mothers to other people in the third person, we will often say "me mudder" instead of "my mother." Same goes for father ("me fadder").

[Patryn]

Australian here and I don't have enough time to think up all the differences, but have to point out that US (and I think Canadia) use Zs more than other English speaking countries...

Realise vs. realize
familiarise vs. familiarize
etc.

Also I pronounce Z as "zed" as opposed to "zee".

And Aluminium vs Aluminum. Both are correct, so ^^

One of my pet hates is teachers telling students they've spelt something incorrectly when it is correct in another country. Same with pronounciation. As long as they know the difference and stay consistent, it should be fine. >< too bad the marking system here doesn't recognise that as much.

[AVN]

Australian here and I don't have enough time to think up all the differences, but have to point out that US (and I think Canadia) use Zs more than other English speaking countries...

Realise vs. realize
familiarise vs. familiarize
etc.

Also I pronounce Z as "zed" as opposed to "zee".

And Aluminium vs Aluminum. Both are correct, so ^^

One of my pet hates is teachers telling students they've spelt something incorrectly when it is correct in another country. Same with pronounciation. As long as they know the difference and stay consistent, it should be fine. >< too bad the marking system here doesn't recognise that as much.

I completely agree with you on your pet hate it's so hard for the kids. Especially when they have a Canadian/Brit etc teacher and then an American one. It confuses them and they never seem to bother explaining. That's why I think this lesson is important. I wish I could make a recording of people from all over saying the same English sentence so they could hear all the different accents.

As for z in Canada we spell the British way though using z wouldn't be penalized in high school as it comes up in books etc so sometimes we learn it with a z if we encounter it outside of school first but I always use s z looks funny to me.

[Jen_KyotoPA]

I wish I could make a recording of people from all over saying the same English sentence so they could hear all the different accents.

I've seen resources like that before on the internet. There are some listed under (10) on this page:
http://www.unc.edu/~jlsmith/pht-url.html#(10)

Perhaps you could use them?

[KIKKI.K]

Australian here and I don't have enough time to think up all the differences, but have to point out that US (and I think Canadia) use Zs more than other English speaking countries...

Realise vs. realize
familiarise vs. familiarize
etc.

Also I pronounce Z as "zed" as opposed to "zee".

And Aluminium vs Aluminum. Both are correct, so ^^

One of my pet hates is teachers telling students they've spelt something incorrectly when it is correct in another country. Same with pronounciation. As long as they know the difference and stay consistent, it should be fine. >< too bad the marking system here doesn't recognise that as much.

Yea, NZ is the only country that only accepts 's' as the official spelling. British English uses either 's' or 'z' depending on whether the word has a Greek or Latin root, and of course, American English takes only 'z' because they wanted to simplify their spelling. I know that in my University, the geography dept is really strict, and they will mark you down if you write, for example, 'realize' in your essays.

I dunno if you want to go into this, but American English has a tendency to not stress the first syllable of a word, and stress ones coming after it, whereas other Englishes tend to prefer to stress the first syllables. I remember my Granddad (who is from Ireland) complaining about me doing it one day when I was trying to navigate us around the Irish roads (I'm from NZ), saying he couldn't understand me, I sounded too American T_T...

Another one of my favourite NZ english words is munted....so useful :p it means broken or dirty or otherwise messed up in some way... like, seeing a car that's had a bit of a dinger (small accident), 'bro, that car is munted as!'

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

USA 'thong' and Australia 'thong' is worth a mention.

[KIKKI.K]

USA 'thong' and Australia 'thong' is worth a mention.

lol, you mean Aus vs. everywhere else 'thong'? :p

[king]

I made a sheet with American words on one side and British on the other, just draw a line to match the two. e.g. candy-sweets, soccer-football, principal-headmaster, fries-chips, chips-crisps etc...
Developed a bit into dictionary time rather than educated guessing but oh well.


In northern Britain we say 'aye' for yes- it comes out automatically for me, which is good, because it sounds like hai.
In northern England we also say 'like' at the end of sentences for emphasis in sort of a des/deska way. (i.e. what are you doing like?)

I'd recommend looking into a comic called Oor Wullie or The Broons and presenting it to them as an English comic....it is written in Scottish dialect however. My teacher thought it was Dutch.