British and American terms

British and American English often spell the same word differently, for example: labour/labor, enthrall/enthral, or centre/center. You can find out more about these differences here.

There are also many cases in which the two varieties of English use different terms to describe the same thing. Here’s a list of various British words and expressions together with their American equivalents.

British English and American English

British people and American people can always understand each other – but there are a few notable differences between British English and American English 

Grammar

Americans use the present perfect tense less than speakers of British English and a British teacher might mark wrong some things that an American teacher would say are correct.

• US Did you do your homework yet?
• Brit. Have you done your homework yet?

• US I already ate.
• Brit. I’ve already eaten.

In British English, ‘have got’ is often used for the possessive sense of ‘have’ and ‘have got to’ is informally used for ‘have to’. This is much less common in American English.

• Brit. I’ve got two sisters.
• US I have two sisters.

• Brit. I’ve got to go now.
• US I have to go now.

There are a number of other minor grammatical differences.