English Generation Module 1 Student Guide

By Student: Erick Pacheco Bárcenas

The countries where English is spoken as a first
language

ANSWER 1:

- United Kingdom, London

-Australia, Canberra

-Bahamas, Nassau

-Botswana, Gaborone

-Canada, Ottawa

-Cyprus, Nicosia

-Fiji, Suva

-India, New Delhi

-Kenya, Nairobi

-Kiribati, South Tarawa

-Malta, Valletta

-Nigeria, Abuja

-Pakistan, Islamabad

-Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby

-Republic of Ireland, Dublin

-South Africa, Bloemfontein, Cape Town,
Pretoria

-New Zealand, Wellington

-Singapore, Singapore

-Philippines, Manila

-Gambia, Banjul

Reference: https://www.ranker.com/list/countries-where-english-is-the-official-language/best-world-journeys

The
cultural differences between the countries

ANSWER 2:

. In England, you're flipping someone off when you do the peace
sign backwards.

**. Roundabouts take the place of stoplights in the
United Kingdom.**

Not to say they don't
exist, but stoplights are comparatively rare thanks to those circular hunks of
concrete. The roundabout was
developed by Brits,
and in the past, locals have camped
out to save
roundabouts from demolition because they love them so dearly.

The Griswolds, not so much.

The differences between the varieties of
English

ANSWER 3:

https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/what-are-the-differences-between-american-and-british-english

## Accent

It’s difficult to make
clear distinctions between US and UK accents when there is such a wide variety
of accents *within* both the US and UK. A Texan and a New Yorker are
both Americans, but have very different accents. The same goes for British
accents in London, Manchester and Glasgow.

However, some very general
distinctions can be made. Americans usually pronounce every “r” in a word,
while the British tend to only pronounce the “r” when it’s the first letter of
a word.

## Spelling

  color
  behavior
  theater
  behavior
  meter
  organize
  traveled

## Grammar

### Prepositions

The differences below are
only a general rule. American speech has influenced Britain via pop culture,
and vice versa. Therefore, some prepositional differences are not as pronounced
as they once were.

  I’m going
 to a party **on** the weekend.
  What are
 you doing **on** Christmas?
  Monday **through** Friday.
  It’s
 different **from/than** the others.
 different **from/to** the others.

=== Past Simple vs Present
Perfect ===

Americans tend to use the
past simple when describing something that has recently occurred, while people
in the UK are more likely to use the present perfect.

  **I ate** too much.
  **I went** to the store.
  Monday **through** Friday.
  **Did**
 you get **the**
 newspaper?
 you got **the**
 newspaper?

### The past participle of *get*

In the UK, “gotten” as the
past participle of “get” is considered archaic and was abandoned long ago in
favor of “got.” However, in the US people still use “gotten” as the past
participle.

  get — got — gotten
  **I**
 haven’t gotten
 any news about him.
 not got **any news**
 about him.

=== Collective nouns: singular
or plural? ===

In British English, a
collective noun (like committee, government, team, etc.) can be either singular
or plural, but more often tends toward plural, emphasizing the members of the
group. Collective nouns in the US, by comparison, are always singular,
emphasizing the group as one whole entity.

  The
 government **is** doing everything **it** can during this crisis.
  My team **is** winning.

### Regular or irregular verbs?

This is a subtle difference
that can be easily overlooked in speech, but is much more apparent in written
form. Many verbs that are irregular in the preterite in Britain (***leapt,**
dreamt, burnt, learnt***) have been made regular in America (***leaped,
dreamed, burned, learned***).**

As the most-spoken second
language on the planet, English has to be flexible. After all, it’s not solely
spoken in the countries we’ve detailed above. So whether you speak English like
a Brit or like a ‘merkan, this should not be an obstacle when communicating
with people on the opposite side of the pond, or anywhere else in the world for
that matter.

How English is changing

ANSWER 4:

### **Why does language change?**

Language
changes for several reasons. First, it changes because the needs of its
speakers change. New technologies, new products, and new experiences require
new words to refer to them clearly and efficiently. Consider texting: originally
it was called text messaging, because it allowed one person to send another
text rather than voice messages by phone. As that became more common,
people began using the shorter form *text* to refer to both the
message *and* the process, as in *I just got a text* or *I'll*
text Sylviaright now

https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/english-changing

The influence of American English on British English

ANSWER 5:

https://doctorat.ubbcluj.ro/sustinerea\_publica/rezumate/2011/filologie/popescu\_daniela\_en.pdf

It may be
that the difference in the rate of the shift is partly due to the circum-

stance that
the British sample is from a single newspaper and the American
sam-

ple from
several, although if this were simply a matter of a house style, the shift

would
clearly have been much more abrupt. The most likely reason for
the more

rapid, but
nevertheless gradual, adoption of the PdE expression in The
Times is

the fact
that American usage was already in the realm of 60–70-percent domi-

nance for
the PdE expression when the shift got underway in the UK.
While it is

difficult
to determine precisely what prompted BrE usage to change, it is tempt-

ing to
suggest that changing AmE usage had some sway, perhaps triggering the

beginning
of a shift in BrE and even more likely causing the change, once

started, to
be faster in the UK than it had been in the US, where there was no

model in
which the PdE expression was dominant.

The shift
in usage in the two varieties took place during the period that wit-

nessed both
the peak of the British Empire and the eclipsing of Britain by the US

as the
world’s largest economy. This influence of AmE on BrE usage – here lim-

ited to
newspaper usage, but probably applicable to usage in general – is likely a

case of
what could be called cross-varietal easement. While they were difficult

to discern
in the past, numerous examples of such directional influence will no

doubt be
uncovered regarding several parameters as reliable diachronic mega-

corpora
continue to be mined for patterns in usage across varieties and time

*(PDF) American English influence on British English at the height of the*
British Empire: A case of cross-varietal easement*. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275995600\_American\_English\_influence\_on\_British\_English\_at\_the\_height\_of\_the\_British\_Empire\_A\_case\_of\_cross-varietal\_easement [accessed Sep 24 2018].*