🇬🇧 BRITISH ENGLISH vs AMERICAN ENGLISH 🇺🇸 Vocabulary Differences

Hi guys Anna here from English Like a  Native and today we're heading into the  

bathroom but not just my bathroom here in  London. No. We're heading across the pond  

to go and see my friend Vanessa’s his bathroom.  Now when I say across the pond I mean over in  

America and Vanessa, I'm sure you'll all know her  

Vanessa from SPEAKENGLISHWITHVANESSA.COM and  the YouTube channel Speak English with Vanessa.

Hi, Vanessa, how are you? Hi, thanks so much for having me, Anna!

You're very welcome. Is the bathroom a  place that you spend a lot of your time?

Well, I hope it's not too much time.  But it's certainly a place that  

I guess we all regularly go during the day.

Well, I don't know about you. But as  a mum, because I know you have two  

young children similar age to mine. Sometimes the  bathroom is the only place that you can escape to.

Yes, you get a couple of  minutes of quiet in peace,  

or I have a child sitting on my lap.  You never know what it's gonna be.

So, the differences between our bathrooms are  actually quite interesting. I didn't think there'd  

be so many differences. But there are differences  in vocabulary and little different habits we have.

So, it's going to be a really  interesting video today.

By the way, guys, if you'd like to have  a copy of all the notes from today,  

where we're comparing the British English and  American English vocabulary from our bathroom, you  

can download your free lesson notes by clicking  on the link below and joining my ESL mailing list.

Now you filmed a tour of your bathroom  and I've done a tour of mine. So,  

let's start off by looking at your bathroom.

All right.

Hi, welcome to my American bathroom. 

I'd like to give you a little tour and I'm curious  if anything is different from your country.

In the US. We call this room two different  things. I just called it a bathroom because  

it's in my house. And usually that's when we use  the word bathroom. When it's in someone's house.

When we're feeling really comfortable  in a casual situation. But we also use  

the word restroom. Restroom is  commonly used in public places.

So, you might use this at a park you could ask,  “Where's the restroom?” at a.. at a restaurant,  

“Where's the restroom?” You might even use this in the  

office to be a little bit more formal,  “Where's the restroom?” It's a little  

more indirect. But these are both common  expressions for talking about this room.

Most bathrooms have three features.

The first one is the sink. The second one  is a shower or tub somewhere to wash off,  

and the third one is a toilet.

So, let's take a look at each of those features.  

This is the bathroom sink. This  bathroom is actually the bathroom that's  

in the hallway that everyone uses. It's  for guests. It's the main bathroom.

But I have a second bathroom that is connected  to my bedroom. It's called the master bath  

because it's connected to the master bedroom  which is the biggest bedroom of the house.  

Usually, the parents will sleep in that room.

So, this bathroom is a little bit smaller than the  master bath but it has a lovely sink still. So,  

this is the sink the faucet we have hot  and cold water that comes out very nice.

My kids brush their teeth in here. So,  we have various toiletries as well.  

And usually, you have a nice big mirror as well.  

This mirror is really dirty. Sorry I  did not really clean before this tour.

But there you go. ...and a hand towel.

I do have over here you can't see it  a little outlet. This outlet is just  

like any other outlet in my house. And  it's useful for plugging in a hairdryer,  

maybe a little light so you can  see at night these types of things.

In the US it's really common to have an outlet in  the bathroom. There's just warnings on things that  

say, “Don't put your hairdryer in the sink.” “Don't put your hairdryer in the bathtub.” 

And they just trust I guess that people will  make a good decision for better or for worse.

Let's take a look behind the curtain.  

This is my shower curtain in the US we have  usually two shower curtains, one is just  

decorative and the second one stays inside the  bathtub and that's just to keep all the water in.

I visited places around the world that only have  an outside shower curtain. But not an inside  

shower curtain and I thought, “It's so easy to  have an inside shower curtain – it keeps the water  

in. It makes your bathroom so much cleaner.” I think this is a great idea.

So, in this one we have two shower curtains.  There is a shower head. There is a faucet  

for turning on and off hot and cold water. There's  my kids’ toys in the bottom of the bathtub.

And typically, in the US a bathtub  will be connected to the floor.

Right, let's go to the third feature  of the bathroom which is the toilet. 

Behind the toilet. There is the tank  

and the flusher this type of flusher with a little  handle like that is the most common in the US.

And we also have toilet paper roll. Sometimes  they're connected to the wall mine is just a  

freestanding device and there are two things  that you will find in almost every bathroom  

that is a toilet brush for cleaning the  toilet bowl. That's what we call that here.

And a plunger. This is very common in bathrooms  and it's handy to have when you need it.

One more quick thing is most bathrooms  have a medicine cabinet of some sort.

So, in here I have some creams, some fingernail  clippers, some little medicines, stuff like that.

And it's pretty common to have a medicine cabinet.

In the master bathroom. There's also a  linen closet. And in the linen closet,  

there are sheets, towels, extra  toilet paper, stuff like that.

You might have noticed that there's no window  in this bathroom. Some bathrooms have windows,  

this bathroom is in the middle of the house. So,  there's no access to outside, except there is a  

little skylight which is very handy. So, because  there's no window when you're taking a bath or a  

shower, and if it gets really steamy, there's  a fan that you can run to circulate some air.

Now in the master bathroom, there is a window  that opens to the outside. And I have a little  

kind of covering over the window so that  nobody looks in while you're in the bathroom. 

But it is possible to have a window in the  bathroom or no window in the bathroom like this.

Well, thanks so much for joining me on this quick  

tour of my American bathroom. I'm curious,  is it different from yours? Let me know.

Wow, that was really interesting. There are  so many things that I'm just desperate to  

talk to you about Vanessa, but before we  do, let's go and check out my bathroom.

Hello, hello! Welcome to my bathroom.

Okay, so on the back of our door. We have  hooks, which is really handy for towels.

This bathroom is unusual, we've got two light  switches, we've got one inside, which is a  

string.. a string light switch, we've actually  got one outside that does the light on the wall.  

Just a normal flicker switch – a ‘switch, switch’.

And then directly in front of me is probably  

one of the most important aspects  of a bathroom. The toilet.

This is a very narrow toilet and it's  because we have very limited space.

We have the dual flush  

so we can be environmentally friendly.  Do a little flush or a big flush.

Surrounding the toilet. We have  a little bin, our toilet brush.  

And this here is a nappy bin. And then of course  we have the old toilet roll holder. On the wall  

and I.. This is one of my favourite things in  my bathroom is my giraffe toilet roll holder. 

Isn’t that amazing? And behind me here  is our wall towel heating radiator.

Storage is a big problem. In this  particular bathroom – we don't have  

much. We put in these shelves. The bottom  one obviously has my giraffe and then we  

have these little baskets that have things  that we need little nail scissors, floss. 

Then we have a window. Always in the bathroom,  the windows have frosted glass, obviously.

And that just allows us to get some  fresh air in and get some light into  

this space while we're stood at  the basin, washing our hands.

Fun fact, my partner actually made this  cupboard. And under here we have a little stool  

that the children can stand  on so they can reach the sink.

And that brings me on to the bath. Now this  is quite a small bath. It's because of the  

narrowness of this room so we had to get a smaller  bath. But I can still fit in there with two kids.

In our bath we have this special tap. So,  it is a mix of tap this one in the middle  

decides whether it's coming through  the shower, or whether it's coming  

into through the main tap into the into the bath.

Got little black plug. And you'll notice we don't  have anything on the wall to hold the shower head.  

So, the shower head is literally just for  rinsing yourself off when you're in the bath.  

We do have a separate walk-in shower and a  little room at the other end of the landing.

We tiled the wall because the kids  like to splash so we tiled this  

area here. And we have this very frustrating  little outlet here. Now, in our bathrooms,  

we'd never have normal plug  sockets with the three pins,  

but you will often find a shaver outlet  so the little tube plug. Two-pin plug.

So that is my bathroom.

So, Vanessa, is there anything that you saw  in my bathroom that made you think what?

Yes, when I heard you explaining your  bathroom, it felt like this is a real  

British bathroom because there's so many little  details that didn't exist in my bathroom.

And first thing when you mentioned  a light pull. I have never seen  

this in the US. Is that something  that's normal to have a light pool?

Yeah, I think with a lot of the differences  we're going to discuss I think there's a lot  

about regulation in terms of safety in the UK. So, the string pull light switches... and it's  

about having the actual switch up on the ceiling  and far away from any water because there's this  

belief that potentially if you have wet hands,  you could electrocute yourself with a switch,  

which seems a little bit unlikely,  but that's what they're all about.

It'd be interesting to know the stats how many  more people get electrocuted or hurt by something  

in the bathroom in the UK compared to the US  because it does seem like there's a lot more  

safety precautions when it comes to  that kind of thing for you than for us.

Yeah, maybe they just don't trust us.

Well, you know, some precautions are nice. Well,  

there is a couple other things, especially  related to vocabulary that I noticed.  

You said toilet roll. Would you ever say toilet  paper? Because that's what I would say. Yeah,

I mean, so the the paper on the toilet roll is  

toilet paper. So, we do say toilet  paper sometimes, but often we just  

talk about toilet roll and even sometimes the  toilet paper we can refer to that as toilet roll.  

I've got some toilet roll, do you want some toilet  roll? Blow, your nose, (here’s) some toilet roll.

It sounds so cute to me when I hear that.  

Yeah, I would never say toilet roll. I  would say a toilet paper tube if you're  

talking about just the cardboard on the inside,  but I don't think I've ever said toilet roll.

On the subject of vocabulary.  I heard you say a flusher.

Yes, there might be a more technical term,  but that's just what I call it the flusher.

Yeah, we call it the flush. So, we take off  the -ER we just say the flush interesting.

When I noticed for your flusher you have the  dual flush. How did you pronounce the word  

/ˈdjuːəl/, /ˈdjuːəl/? /ˈdjuːəl/ almost like a ‘J’ sound? 

Dual flush? Okay. ‘Cause I would  just say /ˈduːl/. D-O-O-L. /ˈduːl/

And do you have these dual flushes in America or?

Yeah, they're more in public places now.

Old fashioned toilets. I don't know if you ever  had these but they have the back of the toilet,  

which held the water really high  up and then there would be a pull  

chain and a pipe that would come  down. Did you ever have any of those?

I've never seen that in the US.  But I studied abroad in the UK.  

And I saw that a couple times. And at first,  I got a little bit worried like if I pull this  

what's gonna happen? I didn't know if  something's gonna spray out. Is it gonna  

pull something down? Is it like an alarm to  pull it but it was just to flush the toilet.

Back to vocabulary you called your taps a faucet.

I was just about to say that  too. Yes, you call it a tap.  

I would use tap only in the kitchen. So, it's  just for drinking water. But in the bathroom,  

the sink faucet and the bathtub faucet is a faucet  for us. Some people do say that that is a tap  

in the kitchen, “in the kitchen sink, there's  a faucet”, but I would still be likely to call  

that a faucet but we usually use the word tap  as an adjective to say tap water. I want some  

tap water. Oh, the tap water here isn't  good. You should buy filtered water. So,  

I'd be more likely to use it as an adjective  instead of a noun that that item is a tap.

I see. I see. It’s funny because I knew there  was this difference a tap and a faucet but I was  

under the impression that Americans  actually didn't use faucet anymore,  

or that was an old-fashioned word. But  I'm glad to hear that it is still used.

There was one kind of cultural difference  that I noticed because you mentioned that  

you had the wall tiled because your...  your kids splash water on the wall.  

So, is it common to just have a regular wall in  the bathroom? Like just a normal wall? Or is it  

usually something waterproof? ‘Cause you mentioned

Yours is, yours is plastic, is  it? It’s a big plastic protector.

That's kind of the I wouldn't  say cheap, but the normal style  

inside of a bathtub or a shower. But if you  want something a little fancier so for example,  

my master bath has high old big stone tiles on  the walls. It would be almost shocking to see  

a bathtub that has a regular wall instead of  something waterproof here in the US at least.

Yeah, well that bathroom wasn't tiled and before  we decorated it, so it’s not uncommon to see  

just a wall in the bathroom without tile  protection. The kind of splashback, well  

it's not splashback, the kind of wall protection  that you had is quite common in like hotels and  

like Center Parcs, for example.  Okay, and places where, you know,  

lots of people use the shower facilities, you  know, the bath facilities, you'll see that,  

but like you said, it's fancier to have tiles,  so the fancier places will have nice big tiles.

I was wondering because your shower doesn't  attach to the top and you said that a lot of  

walls or some walls aren't waterproof. How do you  wash your hair or as adults, at least in the US,  

we hardly ever sit in the bathtub. We always  stand up and there's a shower and you can  

wash your hair but what do you do when you  wash your hair and that kind of bathroom.

So, have a shower room with a walk-in shower,  and that's where I would normally wash my hair.  

The children will sit in the bath and  use a, like a jug to pour the water over. 

And we actually don't really use the attachment  really for anything other than spraying down  

the bath after we've cleaned it, but I have  lived in houses where that's the only option. 

And what you do is you would have  an attachment on the wall normally,  

to hold it up, and then you'd have... you'd  have a rail and you'd have a shower curtain. 

Oh, that would go all the way around. No, that would just come across. Now, we do  

have this problem because you guys have figured  out the best ever shower curtain arrangement.

Two shower curtains.

Yeah, we don't do that here. So,  

you either have a very mouldy bottom to your  shower curtain, ‘cause it's always inside.

So, when you put it out, it looks quite  unsightly. Or if you have the shower curtain out,  

you have a soaking wet floor and  there tends to be quite wet walls. 

It is a problem. It is a problem. Which is why  modern houses will often have walk in showers. 

Ah, ok with like a glass door or some  kind of door that can actually close.

Yeah, well that's another thing  instead of curtains in some places,  

you'd have a screen. Do you have  shower screens? Across your bath?

By a screen, do you mean like  a glass or plexiglass something  

like that not a screen that has holes in it?

Yeah, not with holes. It's like a either  a glass panel or a folding plastic panel.

Yeah, I think that's maybe like 30% of bathrooms  have something like that. And especially bathrooms  

like the one that's in my master bath. There's no  tub, it's just a shower. And because it's fancier.  

There's a glass sliding door for that. And so,  the walls look fancy and there's a sliding door.  

I didn't design it. I think it looks  cool. But that's something that  

isn't as common with a tub. It's  more common with just a shower.

Now, there's two things that  you just brought up there. 

A tub, we rarely call it a tub.  We tend to say bath or at a push  

you might say bathtub, but we rarely  say tub though we know what it means.

But what I've never heard before is master bath?

Oh!

I think we call it an ensuite.

Oh, that's so nice.

So, it's still connected to the  biggest bedroom of the house.  

But it's just called something different?

Technically, yeah an ensuite  just refers to a bathroom that  

is only accessible through one of the bedrooms.

But you do see master bath... or master bedroom.

We say master bedroom but not  

we would say a.. maybe a master bathroom. If it's  a huge house and there are multiple bathrooms.

What I find interesting is that you call it  a master bath but there's no bath in there. 

And yes, and I think in the US it  doesn't really matter if there's a  

bath tub if there's a shower or if it's just  a toilet, we would still call it a bathroom.  

And we call that like a half bath is a bathroom  that just has a toilet and a sink but we still  

call it a bathroom even though there might not be  a bath. Well, that's strange. But there you go.

So, we do this too occasionally, but we  do it where you would say a restroom,  

we sometimes say bathroom so if I'm out set a  posh hotel or you know a function somewhere,  

I might say, “Excuse me, where's the bathroom?”

Because we never say restroom at  all. And what we'd normally say  

in most situations is where's  the toilet? Or where's the loo?

But if I feel like I don't want to be that direct  and refer to the toilet or the loo, it’s like  

“Where’s your bathroom?” because it feels a  bit posher even though we know there's no bath.

Oh, that's interesting.

I remember when I was living in the UK, I had  to really push myself to say ‘toilet’ because  

it just felt so dirty and weird. Like all  the other vocabulary I could if I was talking  

with a bunch of British friends and I said  football instead of soccer just to kind of  

fit in a little bit. That didn't bother me but to  say toilet where's the toilet? It was so hard for  

me to walk up to a stranger and ask that. It just felt wrong.

The other way, it’s a good  halfway house is to say,  

“Where are the Ladies?” Or if  you're a man, “Where are the Gents?”  

and so... Although a main signpost would say  toilets this way, but when you arrive there,  

Ladies this way, Gents that way and so you  just say, “Excuse me, where are the Ladies’?”

Where are the Ladies’? As in,  “Where are the Ladies’ Toilets?”

Oh, because for me, I would  say, “Where is the Ladies Room?” 

I wouldn't just say, “Where are the Ladies’,” but  I would make it singular because I'm talking about  

the room where... “Where's the Ladies Room?” I would never say “Where... Where are  

the Ladies’?” I like that.

Now in your bathroom? I was  quite shocked and worried  

that you guys have plugs in  there as in plug sockets or  

outlets we say ‘plug sockets’ or ‘plugs’ more  often I think you say ‘outlet’ more often?

Yes.

Yeah, we have outlets quite normally beside the  sink quite normally in the US. It's pretty common  

beside the sink. And there might be  one other but usually that's the main  

place you can plug in a hairdryer, curling iron,  toothbrush, whatever you feel like in there, and  

I've never been electrocuted yet. So, so far, so good.

What about the kids? Do you have to like remove  

the electrical items when  they're in there in case?

I've never really had a problem with that.  And it's also high up, maybe this high,  

it's not on the floor. And I imagine that's  probably so that you don't have to pull the cord  

all the way up to look in the mirror while  you're doing your hair or something. Yeah,  

that's never been really an issue.  We don't have. I guess we wash your  

hands. But we don't have water sitting in the  bathroom regularly. I guess there's a toilet.

Okay, maybe I take that back water  in the bathroom. But it's not really  

much more of an issue than other outlets  around the house, at least in my mind.

I guess again, we're just not trustworthy.

So, when you dry your hair  or if you're going to curl  

your hair or something. Where would you do that?

In the bedroom?

‘Cause you have to have a  mirror in there, I guess. And...

Yeah, just like a little vanity unit  with a mirror and lots of plug sockets.

Okay. Yeah, that type of thing  is almost always in the bathroom.

For us. It wouldn't work because  our bathroom is tiny and there's  

not enough space. But yeah, you just  you just work with what you've got.

Yeah, well I’m curious to know if it actually  works. Are there less electrocutions in the UK?

We also call a plug, the thing that you  

put in the plug hole to stop the water  from draining out. What do you call that?

Yeah, I would call that a plug too. You  can... I would use it as a noun and a verb,  

you can plug the drain with the plug. Okay.

The only other thing that  I thought to bring up was,  

you talked about your towels  being in your linen closet.

Yes, and that's where we keep extra towels.  And that's in the master bath. There's  

a little closet so we can put sheets  and towels and medicine. Extra stuff.  

Toilet paper, stuff like that. That goes in the  linen closet. That's at least where we keep it.

Yeah, in many houses I've been in and there's  been like a cupboard on the stairs somewhere  

on the landing. Where we've kept our linen  and towels. In this house we have a boiler  

cupboard. I don't know if you guys have  big, like, storage water tanks or boilers,  

but we have this big warm boiler  cupboard in one of the rooms that we  

just then use the top part of it to put  our towels, that always nice and warm.

Oh, that’s sounds nice. Yeah, I noticed you had  that rack that you hung your towels on. Is that  

pretty common? And is that only for heating towels  or is that the heating system in your house?

That’s the radiator. That’s the radiator.

So, they are more common now they're  called a wall radiator. And it's much  

more fashionable for our bathrooms to  have these wall radiators. But otherwise,  

you'd have in older bathrooms, a shorter  radiator, which you can't easily get a  

towel on or if you can, you can just get the  one on so it doesn't give you much space.

Ahh.

Or in very modern bathrooms you  might have underfloor heating.

Oh, that sounds nice.

Oh, yeah. Warm your toes.

Well, we have underfloor heating in one of  our rooms. And it's absolutely glorious,  

especially in the winter.

So, I was wondering if it's more of a fire hazard  to have something hot or heated like that rack.

It’s water. It’s heated water in the radiator  system. So, it's not electrical at all. So, there  

not going to be any kind of sparks or electrical  current that's going to cause a problem.

I think that's pretty unusual in the US that  we almost always have central air and so the  

heating is coming from that little vent in the  wall and there's nothing that you can touch  

that's hot, and really only old houses have this. So anyway, having something physical like that  

makes me think, “Oh, I don't want to bump into  it.” Or I’ll be a little bit concerned about  

my kids or putting something like toilet paper  touches it “Is it gonna catch on fire? Too hot.”

I'm gonna finish up on the items that  you have behind your toilet. So, we have  

a toilet brush is standard behind the toilet  in the UK, but you also have a plunger.

Yes, that's pretty common. You either have  it behind the toilet, I try to tuck mine a  

little bit behind so that the kids don't get too  close to it. But some people keep it under their  

sink especially if you have a cupboard under  the sink because it's a little bit unsightly. 

So, you can kind of hide it  under the sink but it's...  

it's standard to have at least one plunger in a  bathroom in the house or possibly a plunger per  

bathroom just depends I guess  on how many bathrooms you have.

And is it for the toilet or for the sink?

It's for the toilet only for toilet.

Okay.

We do have plungers here in the UK and  we.. you'll usually find one in a house  

but often hidden somewhere in a garage  or under the stairs like it's not an  

item that's used very often. We  tend to use it for blocked sinks.

Yeah, I feel like it would be quite embarrassing  if you're visiting someone's house and you needed  

to use a plunger and there's not one there. And  you have to go ask them and they have to go to the  

garage to get one and they bring it to the house.  It would be a kind of embarrassing situation.

Yeah... Yeah. Yeah, I mean we.. Yeah.

And on that note, thank you so much  for Vanessa for showing us around your  

bathroom and helping to highlight some of these  fascinating differences between our bathrooms.

Now, if you guys at home from  other countries have noticed  

any differences between our bathrooms and  yours, please do share that in the comments.

And don't forget guys, I've made some  lovely notes for you to download.

Now if this has got you thinking, and you've  really enjoyed looking at these differences,  

and we have also made a video all  about the differences between our  

kitchens and that really is an interesting  video. So do go and check that out over on  

Vanessa's channel. I'll put  all the links down below.

Vanessa thank you so much again for joining us.

Thanks so much Anna for being willing to talk  about bathrooms publicly on the internet.

Well, we have to, don't we? Everyone uses them. Everyone  

uses them. Yep. Yep.

Absolutely. Thank you so much.  Thank you for watching guys.

Take care and goodbye.