Spelling Bee American vs British ENGLISH spelling differences 

"Are you familiar with British spelling" Christina : "Because of Lauren..." OMG , that's so sweet , she really likes Lauren around her , best duo no doubt 🥰😁🇬🇧🇺🇲

It's amazing how anyone from any country has an amazing chemistry with Christina , she is the best with everything new 😁🇺🇲

I had a great time with Hannah! I thought I knew the spelling of many UK words, but for some of these it was the first time seeing them spelled differently! 😆 Hope you guys learned some as well! -Christina 🇺🇸

I am from Canada and it was interesting to see that in Canada we spell almost all these words the UK way

Hello everyone~ Hannah here 🇬🇧 so much fun doing the spelling bee with Christina! And I learned "sombre" 😂 Hope you all enjoy watching 🥰

French influenced not just vocabulary but also syntax and orthography in England. After the Battle of Hastings, our Parliament, Elite and Anglo-Norman Courts spoke only French for 326 years, so all these French words that stayed in English, we kept the 'ou' because it was just like that from French. That's why we Brits say souvenir and not a 'gift for example, and we call our democratic system Parliament (from the French verb parler, meaning to speak), because we've kept a lot of the French words in British English. Even sayings like raison d'être, bon appétit, à la carte, au contraire, au pair, bon voyage, c'est la vie, cordon bleu, coup d'état, crème de la crème, déjà vu, en route, femme fatale, joie de vivre, papier mâché, RSVP (Répondez S'il Vous Plaît) but to name a few

1:06 I'm from Germany, we learn British English at school from teachers with a German accent and listen to American English in film and television. Don't tell me about confusion... I guess it's the same in Scandinavia.

I think plow/plough is a very interesting one. As a Canadian we use a lot of the British spellings, but this one I might use both? I don't really spell it much so I can't say for sure. But in the context of snow it would definitely be plow, like a snowplow. In the context of a field though I feel like I might use plough. Perhaps that stems from the fact that the Brits don't get much snow so we adopted the American spelling "snowplow".

I am American and use GREY and GRAY both. It's kind of weird because it's almost how it feels in the sentence that decides. I work in design, so I often say things like grayscale and gray end of the spectrum... but if I'm talking about the cloudy sky, I usually use grey. A soft blanket would be grey but hard concrete might be gray. I definitely prefer grey but often put gray in my professional writing so people don't think I'm spelling it wrong!

Lauren is great with Christina, but this girl (Hannah) is as funny and enjoyable to watch. She must be really fun to have around. Good addition to the channel!

I think for check/cheque I'll go with UK one. Because check✅ is fine, "I'll check it later" is fine but when it comes to bank's draft or money related thing it's always Cheque for me.

"Theatre" is really common in the U.S. especially within the discipline and in proper names of theatres. The magazine American Theatre, The American Theatre Wing, and numerous professional and amateur theatres use that spelling in their names. It's always good to check the spelling when theatre/theater is part of a theatre's proper name.

It's worth pointing out that "cheque" and "check" are both used in British English but have two different meanings: "Cheque" is a noun as in a printed cheque to pay a bill. "Check" is a verb "to check" something.

Apparently 41% of english is from french

As a person who's first language is french...it's funny to see how close and related the words are between french and british english...

Most of the spelling differences between the US and UK are the result of the British aristocracy happening to French-ify their spellings of words that came into English through French, and then subsequently being the ones to author the first English dictionaries. While the American spellings are typically closer to the etymology of the word and are argued to be superior for that, I believe that preserving the evolutionary history reflected in British spellings is more important.

They sound french because all this words (Execpte Grey and plough) have French origins ^^ Theatre = Théâtre, Centre = Centre, Sombre = Sombre, Cheque = Chèque.

Christina is the best. She has great chemistry with everyone.

Only clicked for Christina's cheek bones, but this was interesting too Plough is the only truly English word. All the rest are French in origin, the English spelling is unchanged - except for skeptical, which is from classical Greek. The English spelling is the Latin variation. ....and grey, of course, that'll be down to the "Great Vowel Shift" (See also, Derby).

Sometimes myself is english and very very wrong grammar but now i learn english is because World Friends channel is teach me how to speak louder and speak with perfect grammar. From The Philippines.🇵🇭

I have studied English from Pakistan and we follow the British English there as well. I guess it is prevalent in Commonwealth Nations.

Some words of British and America accent with differents spelling = Shark , Banana , Airplane , Tomato , Car , City , Color , Water , Juice , Basic , Flag...and the list goes on...

It use to also be gray in the US but more and more people are spelling it grey.

Love you girls sounding out words - we learned Phonics as kids & this why we all learned to spell in school. As an Aussie we mainly speak the Queen's English. I am attending a USA University for my Ph.D & my entry thesis was marked down for grammar & spelling only an email from my Professor to Americanise the Spelling LOL.

Most of these words have french origin... hence the spelling difference.

This shows my struggles. I live in the Caribbean and we use British English most but certain this are influence by America. And sometimes when I write I will use both of them, making it difficult to use autocorrect software.

I'm from Texas and studied Theatre in High School and College. We were taught that "Theater" is the building and "Theatre" is the art

Hannah's smile was really fascinating in this video~

In Canada, we learn to spell the colour "grey" as such, and taught that "Gray" is usually a person's surname.

A couple points: 1) As noted, grey/gray are perfectly interchangeable in the US. I haven’t observed a strong bias towards one or the other generally or regionally. 2) I’m kind of surprised at how hard this was for her. In the US we see british spellings all the time. I’d wager the average american who is at least moderately literate or educated would have no problem with any of these.

The "cheque" spelling in the UK is only referring to the bank note noun.

I learned to spell "gray" from Crayola crayons. The first that I remember seeing it spelled "grey" was in one of the Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little House" books. That series also had "slough" for what I would call "slew".

One of the Garridebs put an ad in a British newspaper for agricultural stuff, but wrote "plows". Sherlock Holmes knew he was actually American. But a hundred years later, I, an American, had to look up what a buckboard is. British spelling distinguishes a micrometre (a thousandth of a millimetre) from a micrometer (a tool to measure such small distances). American spelling doesn't. British spelling also distinguishes grey (the color) from gray (a joule per kilogram of absorbed dose).

Oh! That's probably why I always write sckeptical and even though I know it's wrong I never know which letter to remove 😅

Something like this that makes it hard for me as a non English speaker. Sometimes I confused if what the word that I write was correct. For example like color, sometimes I confused with color or colour and I feel like I wrote a wrong word 😅 the same thing happen with grey or gray, but I know I'm using American English more than British, but I also think I used both of them.

I’ve always spelled it theatre and I’m American 👀 I didn’t even know the other spelling… or at least never noticed

Here in Canada we use mostly the UK spelling. Gray and grey are odd here too. There was a Canadian bus company called Gray Coach which was spelled the American way, and then there is the famous American company Greyhound, which appears to be spelt the UK way. Very confusing indeed!

Christina listening to UK drum and bass makes her cooler than she already was.

I'd be really cool if you day you did a video comparing portuguese from portugal and Brazil! (and maybe even africa)

From u.s. I've spelled grey/gray both ways throughout my life and to be honest I never really noticed or was aware of it.

Canada spells most things in the UK style, but the US style is also acceptable depending on the audience.

*The reason? Most of these words come from the French* *Fr: ThéâtRE // Eng: TheatRE* *Fr: ChèQUE // Eng: CheQUE* *Fr: SCeptique // Eng: SCeptical* *Fr: SombRE // Eng: SombRE* *Fr: CentRE // Eng: CentRE* *.....*

Where is Lauren

If I were Brit and somebody would have the audacity to correct my English I'd just : fuckin' colonies 😂

The spell check in word processors and social media is usually set to USA English as a default and is contributing to the pushing of American spellings in Canada.

I've used grey/gray interchangeably

Great Work guys 👏

I’m American and have spelled it as both “grey” and “gray” before lol

The spelling "plough" retains the ancient Indo-European form of the word. E.g. in Russian this farm tool is called "plug".

Oh! It's Hannah again! I love to see her again here in World Friends. She looks gorgeous and kind. In the end when she says 'sounds really rude' I laugh coz she's too cute xD. One more thing, I can't rid of the fact that Christina is an easy going person coz she gets along well with everyone.

British English is conservative in its spelling of the French loanwords, where as American ones are more phonetic or simplified versions.

When I see "plough", I immediately hear the word "pluff".

in portugal we say sombra- shadower place or sombria ou sombrio like a a very sombre house, uma casa mito sombria, that causes goose bumps

"Theatre", "cheque", "sombre : is there a French influence because of the history between France and UK? Those words share the same spelling in both language. Even for the first part of "sceptical"

In the Commonwealth of Australia we spell things the English way, I would've liked it if they put Gaol (jail in American English) as one of the words.

Wow! I got all of them right! Interesting.

As an American, I was able to get all of them and I was kind of hoping for more challenging ones like manoeuvre, Oestrogen, foetal, gaol and programme.

Canadian here. Our spelling is much closer to British English vs American. I think the only word that was different was skeptic vs sceptic. My perception is different from Hannah's that most of the English speaking world outside of the US uses British spelling more.

I’m American and knew most of these. Plough for plow I only learned in the last couple years. Skeptical is the only one I didn’t know.

In the US State of New Hampshire’s state capital, Concord, in the downtown area are streets named Center St, and Centre St.

In Canada as well... "plough" and "draught" beer. Not "plow" and "draft.'"

Iam waitting to lauren

In Canada check is like a check mark cheque is like a pay cheque.

really good content, helps me understanding the difference between U.S spelling and U.K spelling. thank you.

Wait until Christina deals with "phial" and "sulphur" as well as "programme" and "tyre". LOL

check and cheque are both words in uk english, you'd say check if ticking a checkbox, and cheque if you paying for something

8:01 "Sombre", "Hombre"... mmm. I could agree on that. BTW, "hombre" means "man".

Me not knowing the meaning of half of these words: Yeah yeah i can relate to Christina it looks wrong to spell the word like that! Lmao

I used to be very particular with American English and English when I was in school. Now, I'm like. Oh. Nice reaction. 😂

The whole point of what Noah Webster did with his American English dictionary was to simplify spellings to not only be more phonetic but also to differentiate from the Brits.

It’s funny how the UK English word for “check” is spelled the exact same way in Spanish. Cheque.

Christina is a DnB fan? Good taste indeed.

I am Australian and we also use British spelling so I knew all of these and I agree words like colour look like something is missing without the u. It also is not phonetic for me as 'our and 'or are pronounced differently here and colour definitely has the 'our sound. One that I find interesting is the differences in the words practice/practise and licence/license. In the US they are spelt the same way where as in British English one spelling is the verb and the other is the noun.

Canadian struggles: Having mostly british spelling but having some american written words and google docs constantly switching you between two locales because it does not recognize Canadian English

I'm from the U.S. I must have had some British books as a child, because I remember I kept trying to write colour and favourite because that's how they were spelled in the book I read. My teacher had to explain to me that in the U.S. they aren't spelled that way. I was so confused.

In India we are taught the British English because .... (we know the reason). So here we write "colour" which was a bit confusing as a child because in the computers, it was always "color" because Microsoft is American. So we used to get confused that is this the right. But the curriculum taught in schools is British English. I remember that one of our teachers in high school said that it was fine to use American English but to be consistent on that. He insisted to not blend the two while writing. But the most problematic thing is I get confused that which is which? So I mix up the 's' and 'z' most of the times.

oh, the plow and plough is new to me

A lot of 'American' spellings appear in British dictionaries from the 1600s, 'plow' and 'theater' mentioned here, are just two of them.

Try with portuguese words : Portugal , Angola , Mozambique 🇵🇹🇦🇴🇲🇿

The British girl’s accent triggers me. Lol

I got the plough one!

As somone who isn't a native English speaker I mix both of them, though i use more American English

I use both

I think most Americans would know alternative spelling for gray grey because we have a dog and well known bus company called Greyhound. I’m glad we dropped the u from color and favorite. I hated learning spelling as a kid and favor the elimination of as many letters as possible. 😂

Gray is a name, Grey is a colour. I live around the corner from Gray's Yard, but my shirt is grey.

In India we use British spellings in writing!🇮🇳

While us Canadians tend to spell words more like Brits even though we pronounce them more like Americans, I've conscientiously adopted the American way of spelling, because it's more simple and straightforward. Also it's less confusing for Americans, and I interact with them more often than Brits.

I am Irish and I use all the British spelling except I use skeptical over sceptical

In Australia we generally use UK English spelling: cheque, grey, plough, sceptical etc. That said, we use American terms for certain items e.g. zucchini, eggplant. It's a good mix!

Wough that was such an amasing video.

Grey is an acceptable alternate spelling in the US. Is there a difference in the UK between cheque, a slip of paper you take to a bank, and check, what you do with your privilege?

In french you don't pronounce the last lettre it affects the letter before it.

It’s so funny cause I live in the States but I spell a lot of words like the UK

I feel like I must have been British in another life. I have always preferred the uk spelling for colour and theatre etc. I interchange gray/grey and I got every one of the spellings right. I'm not even sure how I knew some of them.

Christina asked if the context for the word "check" was as in what we'd call a "tick" in the UK (calling it "check" over here is an Americanism"). The only time "check" is spelt as "cheque" in British English is in terms of making money payments by writing out a cheque (there's also "checkered" vs "chequered" of course). Because they see American spellings so often, increasingly people in the UK are (incorrectly) using them too. Companies like Plumb Center not altering the spelling of their name for their branches in the UK doesn't help either. I find it very grating, as it's one symptom of British English gradually morphing into American English so that, eventually, there will be little difference.

Hannah is so gorgeous!!!

I’m from Ireland and we use the British English spellings of words but I was always confused by -er vs -re words. Centre, sombre, theatre never looked correct to me so I would only use the American spelling. I don’t think any of my teachers ever cared which we used.

Wow

Most of these are French, honestly, which is why Webster was like no, that's dumb. Anyway they didn't even do the hardest one, manouevre. Yes, maneuver has an o in british English

I think it’s actually easier to spell if you’re British because most of the English speaking worlds uses British English. Haha and I’m American and I still forget grey or gray. I think I use grey the most and that’s technically accepted in English