How to spot British vs US Vocabulary (without getting lost in translation)

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, welcome to the 3 English Experts. I'm Dave, I'm Rebecca, and I'm Birgit, and welcome to this episode. 3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey. Hi, so welcome back, back to the 3 English Experts. Today we are recording on the 4th of July, which, as you might know, is Independence Day. And so our topic today is American English, and Dave has prepared some kind of quiz for me and Birgit. We're not quite sure what's going to happen, so I will hand over straight away to my co-host, Dave. Hello everybody. So yes, we've prepared a quiz today to test our colleagues' knowledge of British and American English, and it's a little bit tricky for them because I've included the British English words, and I want them to tell me which are the American English equivalents. So this is how it's going to work. I'm going to read out a little text that I wrote about the 4th of July, and I will mention English words, so English, British English words, and I would like them, if they know the American English, to press their buzzer and answer the question. So first of all, we need a buzzer sound, ladies. Birgit, do you have a buzzer sound? Hello everybody, yeah. Ding-a-ling-a-ling. That's my buzzer sound. Ding-a-ling-a-ling. That sounds great. Rebecca, do you have a buzzer sound? I think I'm going to go American cowboy. I'm going to go yee-haw. Oh, that sounds very apt. That sounds perfect. I don't know how I can say it quickly though. Dave, do we get a hint of the words? No, we have to… Oh no, no, no. I just read through the text. And if you don't get it, ladies, there will be from me, as the quiz master, a whoop-whoop, oops. Is that if we get it wrong as well? If you get it wrong, or if you don't know it, if you don't recognise it, if you miss it, yes, absolutely. Strict rules in this quiz, ladies. Yeah, it's not easy. We're starting off with a few easy ones, and then they'll get more difficult. So, are you ready, ladies? I'm ready. As ready as we will ever be, I think. Hands on the buzzers, please, for your first round. Sounds like bingo a little bit. Anyway, it's entitled A Very British Fourth. So, here we go. It was the 4th of July, and I was on holiday in a quaint… Ding-a-ling-a-ling! …both at the same time. I think Birgit was slightly quicker. Birgit? She was, I think. Vacation. I think that was vacation. Woo! Holiday, vacation. Very good. Here we go. In a quaint, flat… Ding-a-ling-a-ling! …Birgit? Apartment? Very good, Birgit. Woo! I thought you were going to say a flat, like, countryside or something. I didn't know you meant a flat. I'm confused. Okay, go on. Carry on. Just outside Boston, the neighbours had invited me to their place for a traditional American barbecue, and I couldn't wait. Before leaving, I grabbed my jumper… Ding-a-ling-a-ling! Very good. Birgit, go on. Sweater. Sweater. Just in case the evening turned chilly, and packed a few biscuits… Ding-a-ling-a-ling! I've got the wrong buzzer noise. I'm copying Birgit. We should have real buzzers. Cookies! Cookies. Very good. And crisps. Yee-haw! Rebecca? Chips. Very good for the kids. Yay! You got the flurry there. As I walked to the house, I passed a colourful hoarding advertising… Yee-haw! But I don't know what a hoarding is. Billboard? Billboard! Very good. It is. I think we need to explain that. A hoarding. Yes, that's the British English word. A big sort of advertising sign. I would never use that British English word. Maybe I could think of billboard. Actually, billboard came to me first. When I read hoarding, I thought, hmm, I don't know. Billboard, yeah. Advertising the town's Independence Day fireworks. It was all very exciting. On the drive… Ling-a-ling-a-ling! I think there should be on the… What is there in front of your house? Pathway? No. Hesitation. One up for Dave. Driveway. We say drive, they say driveway. The boot… The trunk. Very good. You're obviously thinking about a car. Very good. Of the parked saloon… And the saloon, I think is… Oh, what do they call that? It's a type of car. You mean like a saloon? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do they call it? Hatchback? No, not a hatchback. What do they call it? That's what we call it. Pick-up. Oh, I smell a… I don't know. Can't think. Pressures on girls. Sedan. I don't know if I've said it correctly. A sedan? Really? Is that what they say? I may have said it. We really need an American here. If there's an American around there, correct my pronunciation. They're probably cringing listening to this, like… I'm lost. What the hell are they talking about? So, a saloon is a sedan in American English. Was full. They'd stashed sports equipment, trainers… Yeah. Sneakers. Very good. Food, beer, and even jerrycans of petrol. Gasoline. Sort of the cling-cling-ling. Where's it? You've got to… Buzz off. Beer gates. This is so complicated for a Friday afternoon. We can't press anything. That would be a lot easier with a real buzzer. I'm totally uber-forwarded at the moment. Oh dear. Overwhelmed. So, petrol is, of course, gas. Very good. Petrol is gas. Everything but the kitchen sink, I thought. When I arrived, the grill was sizzling. The kids were playing noughts and crosses. Oh, yeah. Tic-tac-toe. Tic-tac-toe. Very good. On the patio and sipping fizzy drinks. Yee-haw. Yeah. Soda. Soda. Very good. The youngest one still had a dummy. Oh, yee-haw. Yeah. Pacifier. Oh, Rebecca's on a roll at the moment. I'm suddenly catching up. Pacifier. Very good. And was playing with some cling-film. Are there cling-film? Ling-a-ling-a-ling. Isn't that... Teaser. Throop. Cling-film. That's... Plastic wrap. Oh, very good, Rebecca. Yeah, very good. Very good. Like you put over your food kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A cling-film. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. Do you want a banger in a bum, old bean? Asked my neighbour in a fake British accent. My biggest pet hate. Sorry? So are we talking about bangers and bums or what are we talking about now? Pet hate. No, no, pet hate, pet hate. Petate, petate. Pet hate. My peeve? Or what? Yes, pet peeve. Very good. Pet peeve. Pet peeve. We say pet hate. I was trying to translate banger and bums. And bums. Well, I was a bit confused with the banger because Americans also say sausage and hot dog, right? And also banger. A wiener. It's a wiener. A wiener. So where was I? I've lost where I was. My biggest pet hate, so pet peeve, when I'm in the States. They don't say that. In the US? In the US. Very good. In the US. They don't say the States, no? They don't say the States. No, no, no. I laughed, took a bite and tomato sauce. It's just a pronunciation, isn't it? I mean, tomato gravy? Oh, yeah. Gravy, gravy. No, no. But tomato and tomato. Yes, go on. Ketchup. Ketchup. And tomato sauce. Oh, come on. Ketchup. Squirted on my clean vest. Yeehaw. A waistcoat? No, vest is underneath. Oh, I don't know then. The shirt. Underneath. Under, under. The underwear. I'm giving you a tip. Under. Underwear. Under, under, undershirt. Undershirt. Very good. Well done, Birgit. Undershirt. Undershirt? Undershirt. It's like a vest. Yes. They call that an undershirt? I believe so. Any Americans, correct me if I'm wrong, please. I have no idea. I'm clueless. Okay, go on. And trousers. Oh, yeehaw. Yep. Oh, both together. Very good. Birgit couldn't contain herself. She had to say pants. My neighbor looked at me. I looked at him and we both burst out laughing. He handed me a napkin. Yeehaw. Yes. A serviette. Oh, no. No, no. There's another word. Tissue. Tissue? No. Wap, wap. Oops. It's a paper towel. Very simple. A paper towel. I like that. Raised his spear and said, cheers, my dear. Welcome to our independence party. Eat, drink, and be merry. Thanks so much, but let's not talk history. It isn't my cup of tea, I said. Supposed to be another one? You're looking like. It's not my. It's not my Bodweiser. I don't know what the Americans drink. It's not my coffee. Where's your buzzer, Rebecca? Oh, yeah. I have no idea. It's not my, it's not my coffee. Coffee? I don't know. Cup of coffee. Cup of coffee. I have no idea what do they say for that. It's not my. My truck load. My truck. They've always got trucks. I'm like, go on, Dave. It's my thing. It's not my thing. Oh, come on. It's a bit boring. It's not my thing. That's it. Well done. Very good. That was quite difficult. I tried to make it a little bit sometimes easy, sometimes a bit difficult. I was so focusing on the story. I don't think I understood the whole thing. I was so focusing on the words. Something about sausages in ketchup. I don't know. I think you could, you might be asked to read stories now, synchronise or have a nice way of reading. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Yeah. So they were words where obviously we British say one thing and the Americans say another. And of course... Sorry, can I just ask a question about one of them? Yes. Jumper. So we had jumper. Yes. And what was the American version? Sweater. Oh, sweater. See, I don't know. I think we say sweater as well. Oh, I think we do nowadays. As in a sweater. Yeah, I think we do nowadays. As in a nice sweater. But it's kind of come over, I think, from America. Previously, I had one which I took out where it's with garden and the Americans apparently say yard. But we also say yard, right? But yard for me is no plants. It's just like a concrete kind of, I don't know, where you park your car in the yard or you, I don't know. There's no grass, for example, in a yard. But they say yard for grass as well. Apparently. Yeah, that kind of, I think maybe... The Americans can let me know, but that's what I read. OK. But that's an interesting conversation going on between two of you, because that shows, because people ask me, what's correct? What should I say? This or that? And that depends very much on where you're from and what you're used to talking. And it's not right or wrong. It's just a variety. It's a choice. Some people like the British or used to listening to the British. Some are more listening to or watching American series. There's no right and wrong, right? Right. Absolutely. I think it's all taste. It's a matter of taste. You know, if you've spent time there or you just like the culture or you watch a lot of American stuff or British stuff, I think it's like you say, there's no real right or wrong. There is one grammar thing, I think, that's kind of always kind of interesting. And I get asked this a lot. Now, this is going to annoy you, Birgit, because it's present perfect. I know. They don't use it as much. They don't use present perfect. So where we would say, I've read that book. Have you read that book? Yeah, I've read it. And they would say, oh, yeah, I read that. They would say, I read. They wouldn't use the have read. Oh, yeah, I saw that. I saw that movie where we would say, yeah, I've seen that film. So that it can be a bit confusing. I don't know. I'm not an expert on that kind of, you know, American use of grammar. But that's the one I know that sort of sticks out. Then it does get a bit confusing. Is it wrong then? Do we need the present perfect, Birgit? Are you going to defend it? Yeah, I'm going to defend it on the reason that I believe people come to us and say, OK, my colleagues sound more natural and all that. I still believe and I venture to say this without knowing about the present perfect and being able to use it, at least in sentences like have been doing, have done for since. I think that will be very difficult to feel like a native English speaking person. So I would always argue, don't try to avoid the present perfect. Look at it if you in the end don't use it a lot. It's maybe like the American way. But we have this grammar queen, Ellen Jovin, with the episode we recorded. She's American. So she said in all the American states and answered questions on grammar. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think you're right. They're bigger with the since I think they do use it. For example, they would say, oh, I've been here since six o'clock this morning. They would use it in that case. Yeah, I think it's the one. And actually, it's one of the present perfect ones that a lot of people get confused with this. Instead of saying, I read that book. Yeah, I've read that book. They always ask. So I think in that case, you can say both. I read that book or I've read that book. And this sort of I've, you know, I've lived here for 20 years. They would use the same. So it's not that they never use present perfect. It's just there's some situations where they don't. So yeah, definitely. Because I have been focusing or listening hard on that. Yeah, really avoided. No, they don't avoid it. You find also find present perfect in American English. I think there's also quite a big one with the prepositions, isn't there? Sort of often on the weekend, at the weekend. And I don't know, sort of right. You often say right to somebody. We say in British English to right to somebody. And the Americans knock out the to and just say right somebody. Yeah, I wrote her. Yeah. Yeah. So there's all that. I mean, I think there's no right or wrong. It just depends. I would all on the other hand, I would sort of urge people to if they decide they want to have the British, then they stay with the British if they can, if they can spot the difference. And then with the American, either or it doesn't make sense to mix. Yeah, to make. And what I also remember from living in Germany and I'm guessing in other countries where they learn English at school is that often I heard about teachers being favourable to one or the other, then actually really cracking down on on kids who maybe for the sake of argument is the teacher who speaks British English or has favours British English and then a kid would maybe spend a year in America, come back and then use more American English that the teacher would actually be hard on that student or that kid. And that I think is not good at all, because it's not fair on the kids anyway. You know? Yeah, absolutely. No, I mean, I wouldn't correct someone and say, well, you're not using British English and I'm a British teacher. I would say to someone, if you really want to focus on like American, then it maybe would help to have American training. You know, that makes sense. But otherwise I would say, oh, yeah, you can say that. I would say like this, but that's just the British American thing. And another interesting thing or maybe important to mention is what you said either or. David, I completely agree to that. And that happens a lot in writing. Also, I see that when we talk or use presentations of customers online, it's inconsistent. So sometimes there will be the American writing or the English. So, yeah, find out what your company policy is on that. Do you have American or British English in the company and then comply to either? Yeah, I think that's a really good point, actually, because some a lot of companies do prefer one type and it's actually in their policies that we as a company use British or American English. So if you haven't thought about that, that's a good thing to think about that, because it is important. And, you know, these days when you're using translation tools or you're using chat GBT, you can tell it this needs to be in American English. So it needs to have the right this that spelling. And there's obviously there are a lot of words that are spelled differently as well. So, yeah, the golden nuggets. So and linking up to that, we have our golden nugget of the day, and that's coming back to also what Rebecca just said, also with the pronunciation and so how to know how a word is pronounced. In particular, for example, we have the example schedule or schedule. Some people say schedule, some people say schedule, which is British, which is American. I will leave this in the show notes as well. A fantastic place to go to find this out and also to help you get ideas of explaining vocabulary in English and not translating it necessarily is the Englishlearnersdictionaries.com. So I will put this in the show notes, so please have a look in the show notes for that. But when you look up a word, let's say schedule, as I just said, you type in schedule and then it comes up. There's the option of listening to it in British or American English. And so you get an idea of how the word is pronounced in either one. So that is our golden nugget of today. There are other options. There are other places where you can do that. But one I find is particularly useful is the Oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com because also you can see also the way they define words, etc., synonyms. And also they show you whether something or how the American English is sometimes different. So that's quite a useful website. Okay, so that was a fun episode for Rebecca and me, for us, hopefully for listeners also. And I'm now announcing another fun episode because we are going to celebrate our 50th episode. It's unbelievable. Yeehaw! I'm going to do yeehaw. Can you believe that? Wonderful. So we will probably collect something of 50 golden nuggets. There will be a collection of 50 golden nuggets in the near future available and maybe some giveaway or some fun episodes. 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