American English and British English

美国英语和英国英语的区别

（未经许可，不得转载）

Written English is more or less the same in both Britain and the USA, and in everyday speech the two peoples have little difficulty in understanding one another. In fact, the Americans have exported a large number of their words and phrases to Britain—through literature, the movies, TV, American soldiers during both world wars, and tourists. 

无论是在大不列颠，还是在美利坚合众国，他们的书面语或多或少是相同的。在日常交际中，语言并没有造成两国人民相互间理解和认识上差异。而事实上，通过文学创作、电影、电视、两次世界大战中的美国大兵以及游客等传播媒介，美国人民把他们自己创造的大量词汇和短语带进了大不列颠英国。 

The following words and phrases, among countless others, are of American origin: teenager, boyfriend, radio, computer, football fan, aisle(way down the middle of a church, train or theatre), hold-up(robbery), right away(at once), slip up(make a mistake), beat up(give someone a beating), let’s face it(let’s admit), be in the red(in debt to your bank), way of life. 

下面列举的只是众多这类词汇和短语当中的一些，它们均源于美国英语：少年 teenager，男朋友boy-friend，无线电radio，计算机computer，足球迷football fan，教堂的走廊（或，戏院、客车的过道）aisle，抢劫hold-up，立刻right away，犯错误slip up，殴打beat up，面对现实let’s face it，赤字be in the red，生活方式way of life。

Some of the words that Americans now use come from the languages of their immigrants, particularly the Germans, who make up a large proportion of the country’s population. The basic meaning of “dumb” in both British and American English, is “unable to speak”. In the USA it acquired a second meaning, “stupid,” straight from German “dumm”(stupid), and this second meaning has now crossed the Atlantic to Britain. As the German immigrants learned English, they sometimes translated literally from their own language. For example, “aüsfullen” became “to fill out” (a form, etc.), and the Americans have adopted “fill out” instead of the British English “fill in”, though some Britons now use “fill out”.

美国人民现今使用一些词汇主要源于移民当时使用的语言，特别是人口众多的德国移民影响最大。例如，“dumb”一词，无论是英语还是美语，其为基本意思均为“没有能力讲话”。但在美语中，它却有另外一层含义，即“愚蠢”，这主要是受到德语“dumm(愚蠢)”一词的直接影响。如今，这层意思也漂洋过海走进了大不列颠的语言当中，德国移民在学习英语时，有时往往把母语的某些词汇逐字直译成英语。比如说，“aüsfullen”就译为“to fill out填表”，美国人民就取而代之，用“fill out”替代英语中的“fill in”。当然，有些不列颠人现在也用“fill out”来表达“fill in(填表，填满)”所含的意思。

Of course, there are some American words that are peculiar to the USA and are quite different from their equivalents in the rest of the English-speaking world. Here is a list of some of the most important. 

可以这么说美语当中的一些词汇是美国特有的，这些词汇所具有的概念在其他讲英语的国家里，其相应的表达方式全然不同。现就一些重要词汇列举如下：