British Pants vs American Pants | English Communication Problem

18,482 views ・ 2018-07-10

Shaw English Online


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:00
Hello guys my name is Fanny.
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Welcome to this series on communication problems.
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And in this video I want to talk to you about communication problems that occur
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when we use different kinds of English because as you know we don't have the
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same English in the UK and in the US, for example.
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So some Americans don't
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understand me when I speak English because I don't have the same
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pronunciation and because I don't always use the same words.
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Most of the time we do understand each other
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but sometimes we don't and it can be quite confusing at times.
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For example, umm, to me there's a ground floor in a building.
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To an American person my ground floor is their first floor.
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So if I talk about the first floor, I don't mean the same floor as an American person.
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So see it can get a bit confusing.
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And talking about confusion, I have a story which is quite funny.
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I was in college at the time and I was on the phone with an American friend
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and we talked you know for 20-25 minutes and then we decide to go grab a drink together.
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So I'm like, "yeah we should we you know we should go out and have a drink."
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And she's like, "Okay yeah sure. What a good idea."
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And then she says, "Let me just put on some pants."
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now you have to know pants in the USA,
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means like trousers.
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Okay your pants. Okay like these.
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In British English, pants are underpants.
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Okay?
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So for me, when she says, "Let me put on some pants."
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I get this image of my friend talking to me for 20 minutes naked.
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You know with no underpants on.
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So I was quite shocked and I said, "What?"
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She said, "Yeah, yeah. Just grab some pants.
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I said, "What do you mean pants?"
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She said, "Oh no no no, I mean trousers."
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And then we just laughed so hard because you know
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for a minute there, there was a just a lot of confusion.
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Um, so yeah, depending on where you come from,
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I think you shouldn't underestimate ...um.. you know the differences.
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And you have to be careful sometimes with the words that you choose.
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You know? So...
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Yeah that's something that can happen.
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So you see even native speakers sometimes ..um.. don't really understand each other.
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That happens as well.
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So yeah that's what I wanted to tell you.
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Umm, I hope you've enjoyed.
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And see you in the next video.
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Thank you guys for watching my video.
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I hope you liked it.
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If you did please show us your support.
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Click like, subscribe to our channel, share the video with your friends,
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and put your comments below if you have some.
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Thank you and see you.
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