【英语单词趣谈】英美单词的不同之处

Can you tell the difference between British and American English? Check out these words, then tell us which variety of English you tend to use by leaving a comment below.

英式英语和美式英语有什么不同?看看这些单词，然后说说你平时愿意用英式英语还是美式英语。

British - American

1. Pavement – sidewalk

1.人行道

2. Rubbish – trash

2.垃圾

3. Football – soccer

3.足球(小编注：football在美式英语里也存在，是美式足球也就是橄榄球的意思)

4. Biscuit – cookie

4.饼干

5. Sweets – candy

5.糖

6. Tube – subway

6.地铁

7. Full stop – period

7.句号

8. Autumn - fall

8.秋天

9. Flat – apartment

9.公寓

10. Lift – elevator

10.电梯(小编注：这种电梯是箱子一样上下的那种，如果是扶手电梯则叫escalator)

11. Chips – fries

11.薯条

12. Petrol – Gas

12.汽油

13. Motorway – highway

14.高速公路

14. Jam – jelly

14.果酱，果冻

15. Cinema – movie theatre

15.电影院

16. Trousers – pants

16.裤子

17. Car park – parking lot

17.停车场

18. Jumper – sweater

18.毛衣

19. Holiday – vacation

19.假期

20. Post code – zip code

20.邮编

Over the past 400 years, the form of the language used in the United States – and that used in the United Kingdom and the rest of the British Isles have diverged in many ways, leading to the dialects now commonly referred to as American English and British English. Differences between the two include pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, idioms, formatting of dates and numbers, and so on. A small number of words have completely different meanings between the two dialects or are even unknown or not used in one of the dialects.

过去的四百年间，美国、英联邦以及不列颠群岛使用的语言都在不断地发生变化，最终演变成了英式英语和美式英语。两种英语在音标、语法、词汇、拼写、标点、谚语、日期和数字的形式等等许多方面都有不同。有一小部分词在两种英语中有着完全不同的意思，有些甚至在另外一种英文中不会使用。

This divergence between American English and British English once caused George Bernard Shaw to say that the United States and United Kingdom are "two countries divided by a common language"; a similar comment is ascribed to Winston Churchill. Likewise, Oscar Wilde wrote, "We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, the language."

美式英语和英式英语之间甚至让萧伯纳产生了“英美两国是被同一种语言分开了”的感慨。丘吉尔也发出了类似的感叹。王尔德也写到：“现如今除了语言，我们与美国有许多相似之处。”