【Brits vs Yanks】

Brush up on Britain

The most eaten convenience food in the world is the sandwich, and was invented by an English aristocrat called the Earl of Sandwich who loved to gamble. To ensure he didn't have to stop playing, and to keep his hands clean for the cards, the Earl of Sandwich asked for meat to be put between two slices of bread... and voila! The sandwich was born.

Spot the Difference

Billion
In the US, a billion is a thousand million. However, in the UK, it is a thousand times more! This could be one reason why there are so many more billion dollar industries in the US than the UK ;)

Brits and Americans also have different ways of expressing monetary values.

UK: one pound twenty, one dollar fifty.
US: a pound twenty, a dollar fifty

On a television advert you might hear
UK: "On sale at five nine nine!" (This means on sale at 599 pounds)
US: "On sale at five ninety nine!" (This also means on sale at 599 pounds. However, if you said this in the UK, it would mean 5.99, 5 pounds and 99 pence! We Brits might be very happy only to be very disappointed if we were told that a new Apple Touch is on sale for four ninety nine.)

【共通问题讲解文本】

Hi everyone, this is Rosalyn from HJ English. Thanks for all your recordings and replies about the topic this week. I hope my tips for you have helped! I noticed that a few students had a problem with the 'ty' that comes at the end of the words 'twenty', and 'fifty'. 'Ty' makes a 'tee' sound. ['twenty, fifty'] In fact the noise you make is the same as the actual letter of the alphabet T.

The 't' sound in general, is a really difficult one for non-native speakers of English to make correctly, so don't worry too much, lots of practice will help, and I have just the thing! Maybe you have heard of tongue twisters before? They are phrases that contain lots of words with the same consonant, and they are especially difficult to say quickly! They don't always make a lot of sense... the point is that they give you really good speaking practice, and they're fun to do with your friends! Recorded below is the tongue twister. Special points for whoever can say it the fastest, and still pronounce it correctly!