英语听力精选进阶版 7969

Qimley has a question for us this week about accents. She wants to know how to identify an American accent from a British one.

It's important to say there isn't an easy answer to this. In Britain there are so many accents and some are similar to American English and some aren’t. Similarly¹, North America is huge and there are a lot of different accents so there isn’t just one way to speak American English.

We spoke² to Dana Hunter from Canada, who has lived in the UK for 10 years, so she knows a lot about the differences between the two Englishes. She pointed³ out a few of the general differences to try and help you.

First of all, vocabulary used in American English and British English differs with certain words. For example, North Americans say apartment and British people say flat. North Americans say garbage and British people say rubbish. There are many examples of this different vocabulary that you can look up on the internet.

There are also some words that are spelt the same but pronounced differently in North American English. Tomato and herb are good examples of this.

There are some general differences in the pronunciation of certain sounds, as Dana mentioned. In North American English, the letter R is much more pronounced than in most British accents. In a word like car, the British pronunciation sounds more like caa.

When North Americans say words with t and u – in words like Tube (the subway in London), tuba, and tuna it sounds like too – toob, tooba, toona. The British pronunciation sounds like ch – choob, chooba, choona.

Certain 'a' sounds are pronounced differently too. The word water sounds very different in North American to British English. You can hear all of these words in the audio⁴ programme accompanying this page.

If you want to learn British English as opposed to North American English, our Learning⁵ English expert Nuala O'Sullivan advised you to look for British-based resources to learn English – British websites like bbcchina.com.cn, TV programmes, films, audio programmes like our BBC Learning English ones.

Her most important advice, however, was to not worry about which accent you speak or learn English with. Aim to understand a variety of Englishes, and just be yourself and use your own accent to speak in.

Native English speakers don't care which English accent you learn or speak in – if you can communicate with them then accent really doesn’t matter.

Glossary 词汇

accents 口音

identify 识别、辨别

huge 巨大的

general 广泛的、通常的

vocabulary 词汇

differs 与…有区别

flat 公寓

rubbish 垃圾

look up 查询

herb 香药草

tuba （乐器）大号

accompanying 伴随的

advised 忠告、建议（动词过去时）

British-based resources 英国本地的资源

websites 网站（复数）

aim 目的

really doesn't matter 实在没有关系

1 similarly   

adv.类似地，相似地

参考例句：

• He was late and I similarly was delayed.他迟到了，我也晚了。
• These two pages are similarly glued together.这两页好像粘在一起了。

2 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

3 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

4 audio   

n./adj.音频(响)(的)；声音(的)，听觉(的)

参考例句：

• Often,the meeting is recorded on audio or video media for later reference.通常这种会议会以视频或者音频形式记录下来，供以后查阅。
• You don't even have to pay for audio programs.你大可不必为自己听这些节目付费。

5 learning   

n.学问，学识，学习；动词learn的现在分词

参考例句：

• When you are learning to ride a bicycle,you often fall off.初学骑自行车时，常会从车上掉下来。
• Learning languages isn't just a matter of remembering words.学习语言不仅仅是记些单词的事。