Confused by English? You’re not the only one!

I’m writing this blog post so you know that YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE CONFUSED BY ENGLISH!

English speakers around the world often have no idea what each other are saying! Why? Because British English speakers and American English speakers sometimes have completely different words for the same thing!!! But even worse… sometimes they use the same words, but they have different meanings!

ARRRGHHH!!!!

Food and cooking vocabulary is one area where British and American English can be very different. For example, a British biscuit is the same as an American cookie, but an American biscuit is something completely different! This often leaves native English speakers confused! I made a video lesson that explains some more vocabulary differences HERE.

Have you watched any episodes of the ‘The Great British Bakeoff”? It’s a popular British TV show about baking. In this very funny article, an American woman tries to explain the vocabulary differences used to American viewers (suitable for intermediate-advanced English learners).  You can watch episodes of The Great British Bake Off here: https://www.youtube.com/user/GreatBritishBakeOff. Turn on the subtitles and practice listening to native British English speakers!

Note: a ‘bake off’ is a competition about baking! You can add ‘off’ to the end of many verbs to turn them into a competition of that activity. For example a dance off (a dancing competition) and a cook off (a cooking competition).