The differences between American and British English.

Hei Hey guys, here are my notes about the differences between American and British English. It's These are my own observations that I did by listening to videos and people. I'll be very glad if you will show me my mistakes in the orthography, grammar and may be in the content if I wasn't precise somewhere.

1. There is no such thing as a “British accent”.

2. One of the main phonetic distinctions between British English and all other variations it’s a is vocal. A The vocal of the British English is narrower than for example the American or Canadian English. British speakers more use their mouths more for the creation of vowels. As an illustration of this statement linguists use a phrase: “A lot of hot Scots” in which in the RP or London accent is pronounced with a short sound [ɒ] and a small movement of the lips. An American or Australian speaker will say this phrase “deeper” using the throat. And A good example of the North-American pronunciation and with open vocal we can see can be demonstrated in a the song “Hot”of by Canadian singer Avril Lavigne. Especially such words such as “hot”, “drop” and “stop” she pronounces with the wide open mouth and almost a [ʌ] vowel sound. 

3. The British English is non-rhotic. On the In place of the “r” an Englishman will use a schwa sound [ə]

4. There is no Tapping in the British English (“d” instead “t” in such words like butter [budder], metal [medal])

5. In some regions of England there is a phenomenon such as “t” dropping (Cockney, Estuary). For example in the movie “Harry Potter” one of the characters (Hagrid) says something like [Hʌəi poə]. But it’s That is not very common.

6. In Britain you can often hear “h” dropping (Cockney). For example: hat (at) and hope (ope).

7. There is a serious distinction between the American and British English in pronounce pronounciation of such words such as privacy or vitamin. An Englishman will say [pəivʌci], [vitʌmin] and whereas an American will do it like [praivaci], [vaitamin].

8. Also we should mark note that in the British version it’s more common to use a vowel “ʌ” and in the American version, “æ”. For instance a the word aluminum in the UK will be pronounced [ʌ]luminum and whereas in the US, [a]luminum.

9. In the consonants process [z] – American and process [ss] British. In the consonents, the American English possesses [z] and the British English possesses [ss].

10. The British English has more syllable orientation. For example :- You-tube and Youtúbe.

11. A The usage of “do” in statements. For instance: “People usually do say that…”

Sharp. Very insightful. 

Yeah, some Americans even can't tell "[ʌ]" from the sound of the "o" as in "hot", sometimes. It's a funny thing they don't know about soundmarks --- even though some of the "o"s have the same soundmark in phonology, the practical sounds vary immensely by them people, you know, "god", "option", "ox", "opposite", "chaos", almost "[ʌ]". ("what", "because" could fairly stand for the average sound sharing the same soundmark) Esp the Africans like to exaggerate it even more.

I think your No. 8 left the difference in words like "can't", if you know what I'm talking about. It's not about the "n" (nasal), although it makes the difference stronger. Can't think of a good example right away, but sure are many eg: fast, half.

As for the "aluminum" example, I think it's more just a schwa thing than other explanations. You know sometimes you can replace the weak vowel by whatever sound, even a consonant, being funny about it. It doesn't make too big percievable difference effectively.

Don't quite get your 11, I think it's just being pedantic or emphatic sometimes, old people do that.

About flapping/tapping, I think the stress of the word might differ from AE and BE, take "butter", it seems like the stress is on the first letter, no doubt about it, but the British tend to pronounce it a little "slow" and "nobly", therefore the stress seems to be dragged onto the middle part like pronouncing two independent words: bu, tter. That might be why "t" is not weakened. If you know what I'm trying to say.

So 5 contradicts 4? Haha guess Mr. Hagrid was too huge and fat to speak clearly, I wouldn't omit the "t" if I were trying to pattern myself after a phony RP accent or something, it'd sound like "ha-rry" (two parts having the same stress, tone not "dropping/falling" when comes to "rry" like in Americanglish), "po-tter" (slightly up down up down up down, you know, somewhat a strange and awkward turn), yeah, "Potter" is another perfect example for intervocal flapping.

7 Oh you mean the difference sounds for the letter "i"? ie I vs E, yeah, we can't really go through all the trivial and particular differences like this here... It's as sore as a Potato-Tomato problem.

9 Yeah I found Americans love or tend to be fond of "z" more than "s", somewhat. Sounds cool or anything?

Most people deem the "r" sound the most characteristic distinction. A funny thing is this is a funny one --- New Yorkers, the Italians specifically, most probably pronounce no "r" to make themselves sound tough, get outta here. The Hispanics, do have the "r", but a quite terrific way, if you know. Some southern Americans, esp the poorly educated old people, regardless of what their fellow urban compatriots even say --- that they don't have "r", the fact is some of them do, actually, and even very much do, but they still sound standardly southern.

So my guess is that this refers to their physical pronunciation habits which also partly explains your 6: British, spec PR, "Queen's English", they hold their tongues pretty tight, their windpipe, throat held narrow (I mean figuratively speaking, "as if"), relatively more tightened up. It feels like the throat is more "back" and "up". Yeah, you might say phony in a way. So I say the rhotic part partly has things to do with the general "relax" level of the speaker's vocal cords.

Now in my opinion your short 10 really comes to the point, that's the whole point, hits the nail in the head. I like that, "syllable", yes, or I'd rather call it "flow of speech/breath" or something, like different tunes for different melodies, it's got it for every (type of) sentence/expression/word, if you know what I'm talking about, that's why even if you use all (standard) American spellings, "soundmarks", idioms, even its "lazy" and "sloppy", or "cozy" tone, speed, including the "r" sound thing, etc, you'd still sound like a clumsy, unutterable yet out-and-through British guy. Same the way around. Christian Bale is an example of such kind, in his daily life, normal speech.