American and British English pronunciation differences

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Differences between American and British English

American English British English

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American words not widely used in Britain British words not widely used in America Words having different meanings in British and American English: A–L · M–Z

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Works with different titles in the UK and US

§ v   § t   § e

Differences in pronunciation between American English (AmE) and British English (BrE) can be divided into:

§ differences in accent (i.e. phoneme inventory and realisation). See differences between General American and Received Pronunciation for the standard accents in the United States and Britain; for information about other accents see regional accents of English speakers.

§ differences in the pronunciation of individual words in the lexicon (i.e. phoneme distribution). In this article, transcriptions use Received Pronunciation (RP) to represent BrE and General American (GAm) and to represent AmE.

In the following discussion

§ superscript ^A2 after a word indicates the BrE pronunciation of the word is a common variant in AmE

§ superscript ^B2 after a word indicates the AmE pronunciation of the word is a common variant in BrE

Edit]Stress

Edit]French stress

For many loanwords from French where AmE has final-syllable stress, BrE stresses an earlier syllable. Such words include:

§ BrE first-syllable stress: adult^A2,B2, ballet^A2, baton, beret, bidet, blasé, brevet^A2, brochure^B2, buffet, café^A2, canard^B2, chagrin, chalet^A2, chauffeur^A2,B2, chiffon, cliché^B2, coupé, croissant,debris^B2, debut, décor, detail^A2, détente^B2, flambé, frappé, garage^B2, gateau, gourmet^A2, lamé, montage^A2, parquet, pastel, pastille, pâté, précis, sachet, salon, soupçon, vaccine; matinée,négligée, nonchalant, nondescript; also some French names, including Bernard^B2, Calais, Degas, Dijon, Dumas, Francoise, Manet^A2, Maurice, Monet^A2, Pauline, Renault, René^B2, Renoir,Rimbaud, Delacroix^B2.

§ BrE second-syllable stress: attaché, consommé, décolleté, déclassé, De Beauvoir, Debussy, démodé, denouement, distingué, Dubonnet, escargot, exposé, fiancé(e)^A2, retroussé

A few French words have other stress differences:

§ AmE first-syllable, BrE last-syllable: address^A2 (postal), moustache^A2; cigarette^A2, limousine^B2, magazine^B2,

§ AmE first-syllable, BrE second-syllable: liaison^A2, macramé, Renaissance (AmE also final-syllable stress)

§ AmE second-syllable, BrE last-syllable: New Orleans^A2

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 984