What Are The Differences Between British And American English?

We’ve already described some of the key differences in the answers above, but there are many other features that set the two dialects apart. Let’s dive deeper into some of these differences.

Accent

It’s difficult to make clear distinctions between U.S. and U.K. accents when there is such a wide variety of accents within both the U.S. and the U.K. A Texan and a New Yorker are both Americans, but have very different accents. The same goes for British accents in London, Manchester and Glasgow.

However, some very general distinctions can be made. Americans usually pronounce every “r” in a word, while the British tend to only pronounce the “r” when it’s the first letter of a word.

There are also differences between American and British English in the areas of spelling, vocabulary and grammar. Here are just some of the examples.