Some differences between American and British English

Pronunciation in British English:

The classic example is of course the AH sound in tomato (sounds like to-MAY-to in American English).

Many words have a distinctly British or American pronunciation:

vaccine in British sounds like VAC-seen (VAC-sin in American).

In British English the r is pronounced only before a vowel.

In the phrase far away we hear the r .

So in burn, lord, over it is silent! 

In American English the r is always pronounced.

The t between vowels stays t (so it doesn't sound like d): 

writer (rider), better (bedder), matter (madder).

The (main) vowels are usually lengthened in American English:

cancel, racket, hand, kid, sit, phoTOgraphy.

Spelling differences (American spelling in brackets):

catalogue (catalog), centre (center), colour (color), travelling (traveling)

Grammar:

Have you heard the news? (Did you hear the news).

I have already fed the dog (I already fed the dog).

Have you got an e-bike? Yes, I have (British English only).

Do you have an e-bike? Yes, I do (both American and British English).

Things have got better recently (have gotten better in American English only).

(On the telephone) Hello, is that Susan? (Hello, is this Susan).

He's going out somewhere (going some place).

I'm staying at home (staying home).

He looked at me really strangely (really strange).

I shall/will let you know (American English never uses shall instead of will).

Shall I call the doctor? (Should I call the doctor?)

Learned, burned can also be written learnt, burnt in British but not so in American English).

Go and get washed, go and take a look (Go get, go take).

Words and Expressions

And then there are numerous words and expressions that differ:

tap (faucet), boot of car (trunk), sweets (candy), university (college), different from (different than),

underground (subway), lorry (truck)

The Oxford 3000 - basic vocabulary items from A1 to B2

See the following link for the 11 pages of basic English vocabulary items as found in the Oxford Advanced Learner's (with apostrophe!) Dictionary:

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/external/pdf/wordlists/oxford-3000-5000/The_Oxford_3000.pdf

Where is the stress in long words?

advertisment, advertise

In words such as advertisment, advertise we often don't know what part of the word is 'stressed' (= what part of the word is pronounced with extra force).

Let's look at the word divided into its parts:

We write 

ad-ver-tise-ment, ad-ver-tise

We hear

ad-VER-tise-ment, AD-ver-tise

Similarly we hear

STRA-te-gy, stra-TE-gic

The 'stress' has shifted from the second part to the first!

There are words where the stress shifts even more:

pho-TO-gra-phy, PHO-to-graph, pho-to-GRA-phic

Do language learners need grammar?

Of course most speakers of a given language became proficient in that language as children - without conscious knowledge of grammar (and never learnt much grammar after that!).

When teaching young children a foreign language teachers would probably sing, recite and play games and never talk about grammar in the early stages.

But couldn't there be educational (pedagogical) reasons for getting even young children (at a certain stage in their language learning process) to discover and become aware of the structural elements in the language they are learning?

Doesn't conscious awareness of Grammar imply conscious awareness of one's ability to think? And doesn't that in turn lead to awareness of being a 'person'? And then, eventually, to the concept of taking responsibility for one's actions?

Steiner-Waldorf foreign language teaching tries to work with this idea.

Let us assume for a moment that we are working with children who already have a certain command of the language but without conscious awareness of grammar rules. "If as teachers we can devise ways for these children to be become consciously aware of the inherent grammatical structures of the language they have been using, this could provide an important stepping-stone towards these children developing a healthy self-confidence. The teaching of grammar awareness would have to be lively (not just system-oriented, theoretical or scientific) and we would have to find the right moment to start (usually somewhere between 9 and 10)."

(See Rudolf Steiner GA 294 30.08.1919).