Apprivoiser La Patate Chaude : Anglais Américain vs Britannique - American vs British English

Hey, welcome to Speak English with Christina l’anglais, fun, fluent et facile.

Uhm, first of all you’ll have to excuse my, my voice uhm, this week I, I have a bit of a sore throat

and so my voice sounds uhm, a little like I inhaled helium or something uhm,

so sorry about the voice but I hope you still understand.

Uhm, so this week it’s another special episode of the series Apprivoiser La Patate Chaude uhm,

which in English would be something like “tame the hot potato” which doesn’t really make any sense but maybe

in French neither. Anyway, uhm this week it’s uhm you’ll see that I’m with an English friend of mine named Vicki.

Vicki is from England but she lives in the US

and so we’re talking about differences between British and American English.

And Vicki is going to tell us a little bit how she had to learn how to speak American

when she moves to the United States. Of course you can download the script plus an activity uhm

that you can do to help you with your comprehension with this video the notes are below the video

but I’ll go ahead and let you enjoy this episode of Apprivoiser La Patate Chaude with Vicki.

Hi Vicki! How are you today?

I’m very well.

Alright.

Good to see… good to see you.

Yeah, good to see you too exactly. Uhm, now just cause… cause you’re…

Where you from in England actually?

I’m from near Cambridge.

Okay right. And you live in Philadelphia right?

That’s right

Okay, yeah.

Just south of New York.

Oh nice. Lovely. Uhm, okay so when you like came to the US and of course it’s the same language

but there’s a lot of differences between British and English, like what are the some differences,

uhm maybe like especially regarding food cause there’s a lot of food vocabulary that’s different any, any…

what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

Uhm, first thing it comes to mind is vegetables.

Oh yeah. Okay.

Things like aubergines.

Okay.

Had to become eggplants.

Eggplant yeah.

And courgettes have to become Zucchinis.

Right yeah.

And then Herbs as well or…

Or ‘Herbs as may say yeah.

We don’t pronounce the Herbs yeah exactly.

(laughing) So I’d have to go shopping for my Herbs

Right.

And uhm there would be uhm, coriander. I didn’t know what that was but it turned out to be cilantro.

Cilantro yeah exactly yes.

That’s right.

Yeah.

And... and some of the pronunciation would be different too.

Okay yeah.

So instead of getting oreGAno.

Yeah.

I have to buy oREGano.

Oregano. Yeah exactly.

If you ask somebody like, if you ask for somebody like where’s the Oregano?

Like would they understand you or where they like, what do you mean?

Ah they make allowances because I didn’t really know how to speak American.

(laughing) Ah okay, so you had to learn how to speak American. Yeah right.

(laughing) it sometimes shopping could be a problem you know.

Yeah.

I can remember going into a supermarket.

Yeah, yeah.

here.

Yeah.

And I wanted to buy a Worcestershire sauce. And I…

That’s the one with the… the name that’s nobody can pronounce yeah.

Like for us it looks like “Worchester, Worcestershire or worchestershire and I don’t think any Americans

know how to pronounce that we’re just like that “Wor-cester-shire sauce”.

And I wouldn’t know how to pronounce it in American.

Right.

Cause I knew it wouldn’t be the same, ‘cause so many of the town names here are different.

Yeah, right.

So I went up to a guy and said “I want something called “worchestire sauce”

but I think you might call it Wor-chester-shire sauce.

Sauce (Lauging). Yeah.

And he sent me straight to the right aisle.

Okay, yeah.

So that worked.

Yeah it would be… Yeah, if you say “Worster sauce” people are like “wooster?” like W-O-O-S-T-E-R. Nope.

(Laughing) And then I think the other thing that was different perhaps with some of the…

oh there was lots of stuff.

Yeah.

I’d go there and I’d see chips on the menu and I wouldn’t realize that I wasn’t going to get…

French fries.

French fries that’s right.

French fries. Yeah, right.

I thought, I thought I was going to get British chips.

Right.

Which would be like a French fries.

Which are French fries. Right, so like if you’re in the US and you see chips on the menu it’s… uhm…

Crisps

It’s Crisps

We’d say crisps.

Yeah, exactly which I’m trying to think in French it’s chips.

Yeah.

So it’s more like the English one chips.

Yeah.

…out of the bag and then French fries in American is chips in British which is frites in French.

So confusing.

I’ve had meals actually.

Yeah.

I had meals for my American friends at Christmas on Boxing Day.

Yeah.

Which we don’t have in this

Yeah. We don’t have…

I used to have parties.

Right.

Well, and I put out lots of lots of English food.

Yeah.

And one things that would cause confusion was the mustard because it would be British English mustard.

Right, right.

Coleman’s mustard.

Yeah.

Bright yellow but really quite strong.

Alright, alright.

And very, very hot.

Like French mustard which is like you eat it and your nose you’re like “uhu”.

it could be and it’s much stronger which they say something like Grey Poupon it would be.

Yeah.

It would be…

I think the closest thing in America would be probably something like Chinese mustard and I think…

Right, I guess that’s real yeah a kind of hurts yeah.

But it’s even hotter

Yeah, yeah.

And then… so there would be picking up there and making their sandwich and putting it on.

Oh no.

In large quantities.

Yeah cause I know I think it’s like that you know on American brand of mustard

which is French's mustard which is really very, very, very, very mild.

Yeah.

So they’re thinking it’s just not going to be very strong at all and then ahh…

so we have to put big warning signs just for that.

(laughing) Careful of the mustard it’s hot.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, right.

And then I’d say you know and then we’ve got pudding.

And they’d be expecting something that was not it would be what would they expect you now better than I.

Like the creamy thing. Yeah like something that’s kind of um,

like in France they have this dessert is called Danette or Mont Blanc which is like,

it’s like creamy like you eat it with a spoon and like that’s what Americans think of when they think of pudding uhm…

Okay, well that could be one pudding.

Yeah.

But pudding is a much broader term

Right.

In British English. It’s for all desserts.

Its desserts. Yeah, right.

We might, yeah we might call the dessert a pudding, um but we do have puddings.

Right.

As well. We have suet pudding.

Suet…

And suet is I think it’s the hard fat from the… is it the kidney or the liver that it surrounds in an animal.

Eww. Okay, yeah. That doesn’t sound good at all. That’s seems awful (laugh).

(laughing) We make some delicious pudding with it.

Okay.

Uhm, there sort of like soggy sponge…

Sponge cake, yeah right.

Yeah.

Okay.

For example one we have, figgy pudding.

Okay.

Just like that. It has feeds on it.

That does have feeds on it? Okay it does yeah.

Yeah. Uhm at Christmas.

Yeah.

We have suet puddings.

Okay.

The kind of suet pudding is called “spotted dick” as well

and that’s you should as suet pudding that’s got currents or sultana that makes the spots.

That makes a spots on it.

Yeah but most of my American guests want to try spotted dick.

Yeah.

Because…

Cause of the name? They just laugh because of the name. I imagine so yeah yes.

Why not go into the name but it someone wants to know what that means they can google it (Laughing)

but yeah that’s so… I can imagine in America what is spotted dick but oh yeah, so there’s…

there’s the.. and maybe like the difference between biscuits and cookies?

Yes. Uhm, I found your biscuits very disappointing.

oh.

uhm (laughing)

I think our biscuits are very good (laughing). I eat them for breakfast (laughing)

But I found your cookies very exciting.

Oh yeah, yeah we do have good we got lots of, um…

experience making cookies I suppose cause, cause we have cookies which is the chocolate chips.

When I moved into a new house…

Yeah.

Uhm, American neighboors came and knocked on the door…

Right.

And brought me cookies to welcome me.

Oh, that’s really nice. I think…

It’s very nice.

Yeah and they don’t do that in England.

They don’t go and knock on your door to say welcome to the neighbourhood.

They would but they wouldn’t be bringing cookies.

Okay, okay.

They might be saying uhm, we must go down to pub one day or something like that…

Oh (laugh) so you guys it’s, its beer in the pub and for us, it’s like a basket of cookies.

But, but you know we stumble into relationships with strangers.

Yeah.

And much more awkward way, I think in England.

I would, alright like…

Simple we might have to live next to you for a year before and we and nod everytime we pass

Alright.

Before we every time we pass before we then speak.

Before you dare. I was in the US and like I’ll see you pulling up with the moving van and they’ll be like,

“Oh new neighbours Hey, welcome to the neighbourhood, glad to have you” and like you know,

five second after you pulled into the driveway I supposed that.

(laughing) Well, hopefully, hopefully that would happened in England too but you couldn’t guarantee it.

Yeah, sure.

But just be concerned about interfering. They wouldn’t want to get in your way.

Oh yeah, okay. I don’t wanna bother them because they’re obviously very busy moving and okay, good.

Got it. Okay, Vicki well uhm, really interesting to see that sort of the differences like between the US and the UK.

I’d like same language but you… like you said, you had to learn American and I supposed

if I went to the UK I have to learn British English so yeah right. Okay Vicki good talking to you.

I’m still learning.

Yeah.

I think I’m about intermediate.

Intermediate in American English so yeah there’s hope for you yet (laughing) right. Okay Vicki.

Okay, lovely to see you

Good talking to you, yeah, see you.

Bye, bye now.

Bye.

So that was it. I hope that you enjoyed that conversation.

I had a lot of fun recording it Vicki and I are good friends uhm,

we work together on a lot of projects and she was very happy and very enthusiastic to uhm,

to create a vid, video sorry, a video for uhm for all the Speak English ambassadors that’s you guys and uhm

like I said also oh, also I forgot! Vicki has a fantastic youtube channel also it’s called “Simple English Videos"

I’ll put the links down below in the notes so that you can see her video she does a fantastic with her videos really

uhm and she taught me a lot of things but also be sure to download the worksheet and to,

to really to work on your comprehension with this

and I’ll see you next week with another regular episode of Speak English with Christina.

Okay, have a good week and I’ll see you next time.