BRITISH ENGLISH vs INDIAN ENGLISH How much difference

[Music]

hello everyone

and welcome back to english with lucy

today i’ve got a very special guest

it is anbu from conquer british english

hello everyone it’s a pleasure to be

here

so this is the first part of a two-part

video

the second part of the lesson is on

anbu’s channel

the link is in the description box today

we’re going to be looking at the

differences

between british english and indian

english

i grew up in bedfordshire in england but

i live in cambridgeshire

and i speak with a modern rp accent

sometimes with a bit of estuary as well

and yeah i actually speak with a similar

accent to lucy’s

um but during the course of this video

i’m sure you’ll be able to hear the

differences there because i actually

grew up in london

and i also have hints of multicultural

london english

and shortened down to emily in my in my

in my accent too

and um just to let you know i’m of tamil

ethnicity

and we just wanted to also mention you

know india is such a

diverse country and the population is

huge there’s over one billion people

living in india

and just to put that in perspective if

you kind of compare india to europe

um just the number of nations in europe

and the languages that they speak

you will notice some differences in in

the indian

english that you use um so we’d love to

hear

um whether you use any words slightly

differently and we’d love to hear your

thoughts on that in the comments section

yes definitely this is all about

learning and sharing so please do

use that comment section to tell us how

you speak and the words that you use

what i’d love to do is um give you a

taste of what one form of the indian

accent sounds like in when we’re

discussing these words so yes

please do so if you give some of the

examples

yeah i’d love to do that that’d be

really cool cool another important thing

to note

is that ambu has created a pdf for this

lesson

with all of the vocabulary differences

and some extra quizzes and interesting

things

so you can click on the link in the

description box to download that for

both

videos okay so the first one is

this one it’s a vegetable yeah

i would call this okra we would call it

ladyfingers that’s so funny because

ladyfingers

is actually the name of a spongy biscuit

oh really

yes it’s kind of the bottom layer of a

tiramisu

sometimes do you like do you like the

taste of lady fingers in touring the

soup

i mean the vegetable yeah yeah i love it

um

honestly i think it’s quite a boring

biscuit yeah

um i think that’s really funny i mean

you can see why it’s called that can’t

you

but i’ve um grown up eating okra lady

fingers and it’s got a very slimy

texture to it

but yeah it’s using a lot of our dishes

yeah it’s not something

that we cook with a lot here but we

absolutely love curries

um i think we’ve actually named the

chicken tikka masala as our national

dish

it was voted as the british national

dish really that’s how much we love it

yeah so the next word we’ve got for you

is this one

brinjal you call it brinjal brinjal

that’s so funny i wonder where that

comes from

we call this aubergine but this is quite

a controversial world

yes that too yes

no this is quite a controversial word

because in american english they call it

eggplant and that’s it because eggplant

eggplant eggplant

because the flower bud looks like an egg

have you ever oh i didn’t i’ve never

seen it no no

is that one okay we call it aubergine

brinjal

and brinjal i’m going to start calling

it brinjal i just like calling it

eggplant

eggplant i love the accent all right the

next one

is this it’s the ingredient that makes

up a lot of curries and

i eat it for breakfast a lot um we call

it

yoghurt in indian english it’s often

called curd

which is really interesting because kurd

actually has a different meaning i guess

in british english when we imagine curd

yeah do we imagine different consistency

yeah isn’t curd like the creamy part of

milk

exactly yeah in indian english you would

often hear phrases like

could you add some curd to my dish or

i’m just going to pop out and buy some

curd

and not pop out because i guess pop out

is

saying i’m going to go to the shops and

buy some curd interesting

but like a dessert yogurt so

strawberry-flavored yogurt you wouldn’t

say a pot of curd

no i don’t think he would know okay yeah

interesting the next one we’ve got is a

really interesting one because i’ve

grown up hearing it all the time and

it’s often been a source of

argument in the household this one is

luck or lack okay yeah

so we don’t have a picture for this one

because i need to guess what it is

lark luck like a lark but it’s not it’s

not spelled with a

r it’s spelled l a k h okay

something to do with luck nope something

to do with the bird

it kind of sounds like it right so one

lakh is

a unit in the indian numbering system it

actually represents a hundred thousand

in conversation you might hear someone

say i bought that house

for 10 lakhs so that would be a million

pounds yeah exactly because 10 times 100

000 is 1 million right i just think also

it’s amazing the way you can switch

between those two acts

thank you so does that is that maybe

because

rupees are a smaller value

so you’re more likely to have something

perhaps because we would

a hundred thousand pounds a lot

absolutely

yeah that could be that could be a

viable um

reason i think there might be a

difference in the numbering systems as

well

across across the different nations so

that will

influence how we think about numbers

and then the term that we attribute to a

particular sum of

money or a particular number amazing

because i just would have no idea

if someone yeah told me ten luck in my

household when we’re talking about

numbers

um my parents always use blacks

and my siblings and i we use a hundred

thousand or a million

and we often have miscommunication when

we’re when we’re talking about numbers

it leads to a lot of confusion in the

household

even within your own household yeah all

right this next one

i wonder if you can tell what it is from

the picture

in british english we would refer to

this as marriage

now you would often hear this being

referred to as an alliance

um sounds really formal doesn’t it

forming in an artist yes

um but yeah that’s often a term that

would you also use marriage as well yeah

for sure

um but in terms of an example sentence

uh someone could say

that these two people are seeking an

alliance or they’re looking for an

alliance

that’s so funny because i would think

that would be a business person

looking to join forces with someone else

when actually it describes an emotional

connection and an official one as well

let us know if

marriage is often referred to in a

different way

from the part of india that you’re from

so uh the next one

is you know when it’s a rainy day and

you just want to catch that bus you’re

going to be waiting at

a bus how would you say it a bus stop

bus stop

in indian english you often hear it as

bus

stand or a bus halt it makes sense

yeah holt is kind of a more formal word

yeah

like a more old-fashioned word for stop

in

british english and then a stand well

you stand there don’t you

so yeah and i guess they’re maybe

referring to the actual stand of the

the pole of the bus signs on the top

right the signage if i heard bus stand

i’d know exactly what is meant by it

absolutely

but we definitely tend to say bus stop

yeah okay

this next one is the word we use to

address

a man in a position of authority for

example a teacher

or your boss i mean in british english

we would just say first name terms for

boss

or mr and then their surname for a

teacher

i remember mr purdum was my favorite

teacher at school so i would

just call him mr purdum or mr yeah

that’s absolutely right

in london i’ve you know grown up calling

my teachers mr

mr smith for example in india you would

refer to your male teacher as

sir and that’s quite common place and

your boss as sir as well

um so with the accent it sounds

something like this

sar so you would hear an indian person

saying saar can you please help me with

the homework please

sorry i was just so in love with what

you were saying i really

really like the accent it is just so

gentle isn’t it like

it’s almost like caressing the r sound

we do use the word sir

we do don’t we but i would say for a

boss it’s too formal that’s always

showing too much inequality i would

think

um but in some schools it depends on the

school’s regulations

maybe some private schools places like

that would insist on a more formal code

yeah that’s true but i never had to call

my teachers sir at school

um what about female teachers females um

so we so in british english we would say

madden wouldn’t in a really formal

setting i’m just wondering whether sir

madam is used in india because in an

email you would say dear sir madam

in indian english we would refer to a

male teacher as

sir how do you guys refer to your female

teachers at school or your female boss

yeah that would be really interesting to

know because we say miss or mrs

depending if they’re depending on if

they’re married or not

yeah i’d like to know that the next one

is all about how you refer to members of

our family

so lucy if i was to say that i met up

with my brother

yesterday what how would you understand

that that you met up with your male

sibling

my male sibling who is my immediate my

immediate sibling right yes has the same

parents

in indian english brother could also

mean

my male cousin interesting so you do you

use the word cousin still

no so this is why when we speak to

a person who’s speaking with british

english we would have to clarify that

and say cousin brother

even though it means cousin you would

often hear

in indian english someone referring to

their cousin as their cousin brother

interesting well we would just say

cousin

yeah or cousin sister if it was a female

okay yeah yeah it’s just the same for us

cousin

okay the next one is this

in british english we say boot or car

boot

yeah in indian english we say dickie

so could you put the luggage in the diki

or could you

could you lend me a hand and put the

luggage in there dicky please

awesome and we’ve also seen a couple of

other spellings for it like

digi as well i guess it just depends on

the pronunciation i guess so as we

mentioned earlier lots of different

indian accents so i guess that’s what

influences the spelling there

yeah and um again this is another word

that is also different in american

english

they call it a trunk they do don’t they

i’ve always imagined an elephant

trunk when i write drunk so they don’t

want to put any luggage up there yeah

oh god that’s not the first trick ever

so the next one that i wanted to

introduce you to is how we use the word

current

in our day-to-day life okay if i said

current what would you understand that

tyson

current is in in the moment that is a

good homophone isn’t it um

yes the current for it it is

in the current moment in the current

moment lucy and i are filming

but this version of current is used in

day-to-day life

for something else do you want to take

and take a guess

current as in like an ocean current or

electricity current

yes so we use the word current to

replace

electricity i could advise you be

careful of the current lucy

when you are plugging in the plug into

the the socket be careful of the

electricity yes perfect

awesome i never knew that the next one

is a word used to describe

an illness yeah in british english we

say

diabetes and in indian english you could

hear this being referred to as

sugar and this is commonly used in the

state of tamil nadu

interesting and is this because diabetes

or some forms of diabetes are brought on

by

excess consumption absolutely absolutely

very interesting and how do you

pronounce it again

so i would pronounce this as sugar so um

do not eat too many sweets because you

could develop sugar

interesting the next one we’ve got on

the screen in

indian english it could be referred to

as the washroom

but it could also be referred to as the

toilet too

but what about british english well we

also say toilet um i know that’s

something that in american english they

find a bit disgusting because it’s too

specific to the actual toilet

but we say the toilet or the loo that’s

slang

i always say the lou i think i heard you

call it

yeah yes i don’t think washroom is that

common but that’s not to say it’s never

used in british english

that’s right yeah the next one is this

one

in british english we call it crisps

i know that’s quite a hard sound that’s

sound crisps

what’s what do you call it in indian

english chips it’s commonly referred to

as chips chips

and what about fried potatoes that are

served

warm ah also chips

yeah i guess everything’s yeah so the

next one we’ve got here

is referred to as capsicum

now how would you refer to it we would

call this peppers or

red pepper green pepper yellow pepper

but then surely that gets confusing the

kind of the pepper that you put on

your fish and chips yes but then the

pepper we put on

like as a seasoning is an uncountable

noun

so i’d say can i have some pepper okay

that would be the

the spice or it’s not necessarily a

spice the seasoning

if i ask for a pepper i’m asking for a

capsicum that is a fantastic tip

so that’s the end of the first part of

this video we have got the next part

which is so

interesting over on anvoo’s channel you

can click the link in the description

box

or just go straight to his channel again

please share

any other differences that you know of

down below in the comments section

and also if you are from another

english-speaking country

and you would like to see another

episode please tell us

which variation of english you’d like us

to feature next

don’t forget to download your free pdf

the link is in the description box

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conquer british english we will see you

soon for another lesson

you