[Vocabulary] AmE and BrE

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Jack8rkin

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Hello!
I just wanted to ask you about the differences between American English and British English. If possible, could you please give examples (like "spanner" vs. "wrench")? There are phonetical differences, which I have been studying, and I'm especially interested in them.
One more thing is diferences in local pronunciation in the US. Could you, please, explain peculiarities of southern US pronunciation? How diffrent is it from the Standard American Pronunciation?

Thanks in advance
 

Barb_D

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You can google and get a lot of this. I didn't explore this site much, but here's one: Differences between British English and American words (vocabulary)

The Southern dialects vary greatly throughout the South. Someone from deep in Cajun country in Louisiana will sound as different from someone from Raleigh, North Carolina, as they both do to someone from Chicago or Boston.

In general, the Rs are softer. North might sound more like "nawth." Some words that are one crisp syllable in Yankeeland might take two syllables. Hail: hay-ull.

Nothing, not even Dick Van Dyke's awful fake British accent in Mary Poppins, sounds worst to me than a fake Southern accent.

Watch Andie MacDowell or Matthew McConaughey or early Julie Roberts movies.
 

Jack8rkin

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How about the sound denoted by "o" in such words like box, job, pop, stop etc.? What AmE accents use the sound like "a" in "father" for such words? What about the words like "what"? There are 2 questions about it:
1) Is "wh" still pronounced like hw by some speakers (I heard it in audiobooks, and know it was pronounced like that in Old English)?
2) How does the "a" sounds in this word: more like "o" (in "thought") or "a" (in "father", and is labialized by the "w" sound)?
 
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