British vs American vs Canadian ENGLISH Differences very different

hello everyone and welcome back to

english with lucy i’ve got a great video

planned for you today

we are going to be comparing british

english with american english

and canadian english and i have two

fabulous guests on my channel

and i think you might recognize them hey

my name is rachel i’m from the us and i

have a channel here on youtube where i

focus on all things spoken english with

an american accent my accent is what i

would call a standard american accent i

grew up in florida i went to school in

the midwest and since then i’ve lived in

boston new york and philadelphia so we

have rachel representing the us and

representing canada we have bob the

canadian

well hello lucy and hello rachel and

hello to all of lucy’s viewers i’m bob

the canadian from the youtube channel

learn english with bob the canadian

where you’ll often find me out somewhere

on my farm teaching a short english

lesson

if you haven’t met me before my name’s

lucy i run this channel english with

lucy and i am from cambridgeshire in the

united kingdom and i speak with a modern

rp accent i’d just like to remind you

that there’s a free pdf that goes with

this lesson it’s got everything that

we’re going to talk about today plus a

quiz at the end

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offers by the way this is a two-part

video today we are looking at vocabulary

and in the future there will be a part

two with pronunciation where we will

definitively find out if canadians say a

boot

or not

okay so i have sent bob and rachel a

list of pictures and they are going to

tell us how they say it where they’re

from because there are going to be some

differences let’s get started with this

first one

this first one is definitely the letter

z although as a child we watched the

american version of sesame street and

they tried to get me to learn it as the

letter z but this in canada is

definitely the letter z x y zed

i would definitely call this letter z

interesting for me in the uk in british

english it is the letter zed as well

i really relate to bob on that one

because we used to watch loads of tv

shows and cartoons that were produced in

the us and they always used to say z as

well and i remember finding it quite

confusing but yeah xyz over here

okay let’s take a look at this next one

what would they call this

so this is definitely a bill in canadian

english when you’re at a restaurant and

when you’re done eating you ask your

server if you can have the bill

the check is the most common but i would

also call this the bill

in the uk this is

always the bill

and funny story i worked as a waitress

when i was a teenager and someone once

said to me

but i misread their lips and i thought

they said can i have some milk and i

brought them a glass of milk and they

were just so confused

okay on to the third what

would you call this and remember that

you can write in the comments section

below what you would call these as well

if you say something different

so we call these either running shoes or

runners in canadian english if you’re

going to go out for a walk or a run you

put on your running shoes or you put on

your runners

there are lots of different terms i

might use for this tennis shoes or

running shoes even though they might not

specifically be for tennis or running

also sneakers

interesting we don’t use any of those

words in the uk we understand them

sneakers

running shoes tennis shoes but i would

say that running shoes would be

specifically for running in general we

call these shoes trainers

trainers

okay on to the next

a long time ago in canadian english we

called this a chesterfield but now we

just call it a couch sometimes we might

say sofa but usually when we see

something like this we say i’m gonna go

sit on the couch

i would call this either a couch or a

sofa

funny okay so we would hardly ever call

this a couch that sounds very american

and canadian to me

we would almost always call this a sofa

or sometimes a seti

a chesterfield to me seems like an

old-fashioned leather sofa it’s a

specific design we do have a lot of

americanisms in british english and we

would say a couch potato not a sofa

potato that

doesn’t work

if someone’s lazy they’re a couch potato

so we have adopted that

okay on to the next one

the one dollar coin in canada has a

loonie on it that’s a bird that lives in

northern canada so we decided we would

just call this the looney then when we

decided to have a two dollar coin we

thought we would call it a toonie

because it’s worth two dollars and it

rhymes with looney

slang for one dollar a buck

i love the looney and then the toonie i

think that’s absolutely hilarious yeah

i’ve heard of buck before so we don’t

have dollars in the uk we have pounds

and our slang term for one pound is a

quid and we haven’t thought of a cool

name for two we call it two quit one

quid two quid another thing to note is

when we have five pounds or five quid

we’ll call it a fiver and for ten a

tenner

in canada we would call this pop i think

it’s the second half of the word sodapop

i think my american cousins use the

first part of the word i think they call

it soda but we just call it pot

actually in the u.s we use either soda

or pop depending on the region i

personally use soda

interesting okay

so there are definitely some clear

similarities between those two

unsurprisingly uh in the uk it’s very

different you will find some people i

think more up north saying pop

um but in general we call it fizzy

drinks which doesn’t sound as cool now

the word soda to us is quite confusing

because a soda for us is fizzy water so

i remember going over to the us and i

was offered a soda and i thought oh i’m

boring

no i’ll have something more interesting

like a coke please

okay on to the next one

in canada we use the metric system so we

measure distance in kilometers but that

seems like a really big word so

sometimes we just say clicks if you ask

someone how do i get to niagara falls

they might say oh it’s about 40 clicks

from here sometimes it’s spelled with a

c

sometimes with a k

i would call that one kilometer but of

course in the u.s we’re much more

familiar with miles

so we’re quite boring here we would just

call it a kilometer but sometimes when

we’re running or doing sport we would

just shorten that down to k

so i love running and i like to run 5k

and 10k five kilometers 10 kilometers

i’ve never heard of click before that’s

quite cool for driving we do still tend

to use miles our speed is in miles per

hour how weird is that i go running in

kilometers but i drive in miles

we need to sort that out

all right let’s talk about this one this

is what i actually celebrated uh this

weekend that’s just gone past

in canadian english we would call this

either a stag and dough or a jack and

jill it’s a party that a couple has

about a month or two before their actual

wedding where they just invite friends

and family over just to have a good time

to celebrate the fact that they’re

getting married

that would be a bachelor party for a man

a bachelorette party for a woman

ah it’s completely different in the uk

we say

hendu a do is a party

or a stag do now it’s more common for

them to be more than one night people

like to go away for weekends

but if it’s just one night you can say

hen night or stag night as well

also it’s not so common to celebrate

them together as bob explained but it is

becoming more more common and we put

stag and hen together and we call it a

sten

hag didn’t sound so good

[Laughter]

ah okay this next one is an interesting

one and i kind of just put it in for bob

let’s see what he says

canadians often add the word a to the

end of a sentence to turn it into a

question so i can’t really explain how

it works but i’ll give you a few

examples i could say it’s a nice day out

here eh or i could say it’s getting hot

out here eh or if it was getting a bit

windy i could say it’s getting windy out

here eh all of those would be examples

of how canadians use the word a

a common question tag in the us would be

right

yes i just wanted to hear bob say a i

know it’s a common stereotype that um

well there’s two that i’ve heard of

canada that they say aboot

in british english we do use a sometimes

a

a

or

isn’t it or doesn’t it we do say a lot

it’s hot isn’t it

sometimes we can shorten this down to in

it it’s hot in it oh my god in it

doesn’t it can go to done it it hurts

done it

i’ve heard them say write a lot in

american english that’s definitely

creeping into british english because we

just consume so much american media

so canada is a pretty big country and in

different parts i think they have

different words for this we call them

smokes in some parts of canada they

might call them darts but most people i

think just call them cigarettes

i don’t smoke so i’m not super familiar

here but i would say cigarettes or

for shorter or for slang ciggies or

smokes

so smokes sounds very very

like american gangster film to me in

british english cigarettes or sigis we

also use the word which if you use

it to describe a person it’s a really

offensive word but it’s a common slang

term for cigarettes okay on to the next

what do you call this

so these are what we call freezies you

buy them in the store and they’re not

frozen when you come home you put them

in the freezer and in a couple days

they’re frozen and then on a hot day

kids can take them out snip the end off

with a pair of scissors and eat it to

cool off

i’d call this a popsicle

okay so yeah we’re definitely cool in

british english this a popsicle um but

we would also call it a lolly

any kind of frozen treat that isn’t

creamy we’d call a lolly if it’s creamy

it’s an ice cream so in canada we would

call this homo milk or whole milk homo

is short for homogenized i think they

mix the milk and the cream together so

it won’t separate anymore so this in

canada would be either homo milk or

whole milk

that would be whole milk

ah okay so

if someone asked me for homo milk i

would not know what they’re talking

about

i would understand whole milk but in the

uk we tend to call it full fat milk or

full cream milk

anything with the fat removed is skimmed

or semi-skimmed which is half and half

also i forgot to ask bob

if it’s true that his milk comes in bags

i’ve heard that in canada

milk comes in bags okay next one what

are they going to call this

so we would call this either a parking

garage or a parkade when you go to see a

show in a city like toronto you park

your car in a parking garage or in a

parkade

i would call this a parking garage

for me this is a multi-storey car park

we do have a habit of over complicating

things yeah um

one thing i’ve noticed is that in the us

they call it a parking lot we always

call this a car park and if it has

multiple levels it’s a multi-story car

park

i would definitely understand parking

garage or garage as we would call it

but if someone said parkade i would

think that might be like a mix between a

park and an arcade which sounds so fun

and i would be so bitterly disappointed

when i get there and it’s a multi-story

car park all right on to the next one

what do you call this

so we would call this a washroom in

canada i still remember one of my first

visits to the u.s when i asked someone

if i could use their washroom and they

looked at me funny because i think they

call it a bathroom there but in canada

this is definitely a washroom i would

call this a bathroom or we would also

say restroom

interesting in british english we’d

understand washroom and restroom

and bathroom of course but we tend to

call it the loo or just simply the

toilet

bathroom to me implies that it has a

bath and a shower

so a public bathroom

well i don’t want to have a shower or a

bath in a public bath you will often see

toilets or public restrooms in the uk

marked with wc

this is short for water closet but no

one ever says water closet

we always say the loo or the toilets

where are the toilets where’s the toilet

some of my friends from across the pond

have said that they find saying the word

toilet directly quite vulgar and i do

understand that but it’s just so

ingrained into our everyday speech

right let’s take a look at this next one

what do they say

we would call this either a fire hall or

a fire station the fire hall is the

place where you would find firefighters

and fire trucks and if there’s a fire

the alarm goes off and they jump in

their trucks and they go to put out the

fire so we would call it a fire hall or

a fire station

fire station but also fire house

interesting for us this is just a fire

station we never ever say fire hall or

what was the other one firehouse no we

never say that fire station

actually i’ve just thought there’s a bar

in london called the chilton firehouse

which is meant to be very nice actually

it is very nice i’ve been there and

yeah i never even thought twice about

that maybe we do say firehouse every now

and again all right on to the next one

what do they say for this

in canada we often refer to electricity

as hydro sometimes there’s a storm and

the hydro goes out the poles along the

road are called hydro pools so i think

this is because a lot of our electricity

comes from hydroelectric power plants

but in canada you call electricity hydro

we call that electricity

interesting

because if you said the hydra wasn’t

working i would presume that was your

water supply in british english we call

this electricity the electric we also

say the power so we have a power cut or

the power’s gone out or energy you know

my energy bill’s gone up so much this is

because we use

lots of different sources as gas in many

houses

oil is what we use here it depends if

you’re on the mains supply or not

okay what do they call this

so we would call this either brown bread

or whole wheat bread it’s more common

for me as an older canadian to call it

brown bread i think for my kids they

would call this whole wheat bread but

definitely when i was growing up we had

white bread and we had brown bread

i would call that whole wheat bread

i’m definitely seeing more similarities

between canadian english and british

english than american english and

british english we also call this brown

bread

uh multi-grain and whole wheat is also

creeping in but in general we have brown

bread white bread

okay

what do they say for this one

sometimes when you’re at a restaurant

you get a little bit of food on your

mouth and you use a serviette to wipe it

off so this is what we in canada would

call a serviette

that’s a paper napkin

ah interesting in british english we use

both

serviette and napkin for me a serviette

seems like a kind of

cheaper white one that’s disposable and

a napkin is either decorated or made of

material

right let’s see what they say for this

one

we call a case of beer with 24 bottles

in it a 2-4 in canada do you get it

there’s 24 bottles of beer in it 2-4 so

we call a case of beer with 24 bottles

of beer in it a 2-4

we would call that a case of beer

in british english we would call this a

24 pack

if someone asked me for a 2-4

i don’t know i don’t think i’d know what

they’re talking about but i like that

that’s very efficient

right that is it for today’s video thank

you so much to bob and rachel for their

fantastic explanations

and for generously participating in this

video i’ve left all of their information

down below in the description box you

can also click on the link there to get

your free pdf for today’s lesson don’t

forget to connect with me on all of my

social media i’ve got my instagram and

i’ve got my website

englishwithlucy.co.uk

where i’ve got a really cool

pronunciation tool you can click on all

the phonemes and hear how words are

pronounced in british english

e

no

air

if you’re looking for more listening

practice and to expand your vocabulary

then i also have my vlogging channel

where i document my life here on a farm

in the english countryside all of the

vlogs are fully subtitled for your

convenience so you can pick up lots of

vocab and improve your listening i will

see you soon for another lesson

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