Should You Learn British or American English? This Is What I Recommend...

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- Hello, this is Jack from tofluency.com.

Now, today we're going to talk about which you should learn,

whether this is American English or British English.

Now, I get this question a lot,

people ask me, "Which one should I learn?"

And I get this question on YouTube,

and through email too,

and today we're gong to answer that question,

and I'm going to share some of my thoughts

on this topic too.

The first thing to know is that there are differences

between British and American English.

Now, look at this sentence in American English,

and excuse me for my accent.

He's awesome at getting the best takeout

from that barbecue joint right on time.

That's the American version,

this is the British version.

He's brilliant at getting takeaway

from that fish and chip shop just in time.

Now, you will have noticed some differences with the accent,

and again, I'm not the best at accents,

but I did my best.

And also some differences with the vocabulary,

so in American English you say takeout,

in British English we say takeaway.

The barbecue joint is a way to talk about

a style of food and restaurant in the US,

where a fish and chip shop is from the UK.

There are differences in terms of grammar,

vocabulary, slang, the way that people speak,

even the vowels in English too,

and we'll look at an example of that later.

So there are definitely differences between the two,

and you'll notice this when visiting both countries,

and also watching TV from the UK

and TV from the United States.

What I want to say at this point is that

one variant isn't just naturally better than the other.

Although you will see people argue about this,

especially people from the UK,

they'll say, "We invented the language,

"it's the original way to speak,

"therefore it's the best one."

But my opinion is,

there's no natural difference between the two

in terms of which one is better.

They're just different,

and this is the way that people speak

in both of these countries.

Something interesting about this though,

is people from the UK can understand Americans

better than Americans can understand Brits,

and that's because people in the UK grow up

watching American TV and they get a lot of American culture

coming to their small island,

whereas in the US they're not as exposed

to the British way of speaking,

although that did change somewhat with "Downton Abbey".

And before I answer the question which one you should learn,

this is also important too.

When people talk about British English,

they're generally talking about received pronunciation

and English from England,

but there are many different accents

and styles of English that come from the UK.

There's English from Scotland,

English from Wales,

English from Ireland, and Northern Ireland,

that was bad,

and also English from places like Liverpool.

The same is true in the US,

so there's a lovely southern accent

that people use around here,

and then there's also English from New York,

hello, I'm from New York.

So when people say British versus American English,

it is missing part of that conversation,

and it's not just about the accent either,

because slang is different from different places.

For example, where I'm from,

you'll hear people say, "Alright cha'!

"Alright, cha!"

Which just means how's it going, friend?

And then there's Australian English,

which a lot of people forget about.

This is another variant of English

that is spoken in Australia.

Now, I love the Australian accent,

I'm just not very good at it.

G'day mate, that's all I can do,

and then there's also English

from places like New Zealand, too,

and this is different to Australia,

and then within Australia, and within New Zealand,

you'll have differences with the dialects

and the vocabulary.

Having said all that, at this stage,

you're probably thinking,

"Okay, but which one should I focus on?

"And should I just focus on one, so I don't get confused?"

Here's what I recommend,

choose one when it comes to accent training,

and then expose yourself to anything that you come across

when you're learning English.

So be open to different variants.

Now, let's say, because you're watching this,

and this is a channel about British English,

that you want to learn

just a standard British English accent,

so, you choose my program or you choose my videos

to train your accent,

that's good, so focus on this when you're training,

but then when it comes to input,

listening to things, watching things, reading things,

be open to other things as well,

and how much variance you get

depends on you, what you're comfortable with,

what you're interested in,

but the key is not to get stressed out

about learning different styles of English.

If you live in the UK,

for example, Birmingham, England,

then you're going to be exposed

to English from Birmingham (laughs) all the time,

and that is going to dictate what you're listening to,

because you're going to be interacting

with people all the time.

But if you're in a non-English speaking country,

and you're learning English,

and you want to immerse yourself in a virtual way

by using the internet to watch YouTube videos,

to watch TV shows, to watch movies,

to read articles, to read newspapers,

then it's up to you in terms of what resources you choose,

and this is amazing these days,

because we have so many resources right there

that we can choose from,

but it can be a little bit overwhelming

at the same time.

That's why it's a good idea to do some research,

find the resources that you like,

and then get into the habit of reading the same newspaper,

watching the same TV show, day after day.

So you might be wanting to be British English heavy,

where you're mainly watching TV shows from the UK,

and listening to podcasts from the UK,

but every now and then,

it's okay if a little bit of American English

enters your ears and comes into your world,

and I think it's also good to expose yourself

to the different variants of English,

because it's just going to help you better train your ears

to be able to understand people when they talk.

And in most cases, if you're doing business internationally,

if you're traveling,

you're going to meet lots of people from different areas

of the English-speaking world,

and being able to understand them

is going to help you in the long term.

But all of this is down to you,

the key is not to get stressed about it,

and again I recommend focusing on one area

when it comes to accent training

and working on the sounds of English,

because the example is this,

I can do it, I can do it.

In American English, you'll hear, I can, can.

And the vowel sound is a little bit different,

and when you're training yourself to say vowel sounds,

it can get frustrating if you hear differences

and you think, "Oh, but which one is right?

"Which one's correct?"

That's why it's good to focus on one

when you're doing this type of training,

but then be open to different areas of English

when you're getting your input.

So, what do you think?

Do you agree with what I've said in this video?

Do you disagree?

Either way, leave a comment below

and tell me about what you do

when it comes to different areas of English,

or different types of English,

and if you're new here, welcome,

subscribe to the channel and turn on the notification bell.

(bell pings) And then everyone

who hasn't got this yet, go to the description

and download my book, "The 5-Step Plan for English Fluency".

This is going to help you on your fluency journey.

Okay, thank you so much for watching,

and I will speak to you soon, bye bye.

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