British Translations for Americans

Hey guys! So I realise the vast majority of stories on Wattpad are written in English(US) and I don't have a problem with that at all, but there is one thing I do have a problem with; when someone tries to set a story in Britain and doesn't use the correct phrases or terms, so I though I'd write a little translation service for anyone trying to write British

1) Hospitals- Although it is really sweet when the boy pays the girl's hospital bills in most cases this is unrealistic as we have the NHS which basically means free health care and no hospital bills. If one of your characters gets cancer and is under treatment then its most likely they are getting it free from the government funded by tax payers. Unless you go for private health care which is rare.

2) School- In some places in England we do have High School and in other areas we have Secondary School which is similar, but slightly different. Secondary School and English High Schools start at Year 7 (which I think is the equivalent of 6th Grade) at the age of 11 and either ends at Year 11 (which I think is the equivalent of being a sophomore) at the age of 16 or at upper 6th (like a senior) sometimes the last two years are done at a separate 6th form college. We don't have middle schools, only primary schools that end in Year 6, or 5th grade. Another thing is almost all schools in the entire country wear uniforms, not just private or boarding schools, everywhere, which normally includes a blazer, mine is green and yucky!

3) Accent- I know in American films and even in things like Harry Potter (we are all massive potterheads), the English accent is really exaggerated and they all speak like the queen, but in real life we can sound quite different and actually use loads of slang. By the way, can anyone please tell me the appeal of a British accent?

4) Here are some words and stuff that me and my friends have noticed are different and get used a lot

Mom - Mum

Pants - Trousers

Underwear - Pants (as you can see it can be a bit confusing for us) or knickers if a girl

Band-aid - Plaster

Kindergarten - Playgroup or Primary School

Butt/Ass - Bum/Arse (so its also Ar*ehole too, not A*shole (I'm not really sure where the *'s go))

If anyone can think of any other different words please comment!

5) Stuff we don't do/say- I'll be honest, I don't like tea, but that doesn't mean everyone doesn't. It is actually really popular, but we don't do that thingy where you stick out you pinkie finger. I don't think I hear many guys actually call a girl love, or definitely not as often or much as I read in Fanfics. My friend wanted to me to mention that bloke isn't an insult, I'm not sure she really understands though, so I just added that in to humour her (Neve, I luuurv chu!) To be honest we normally use the same pet names like Babe and so on. Another friend wanted me to point out that we don't actually say Cheerio or pip pip, not that I have ever read that anywhere, its just weird but, hey, I want to keep my friends happy.

6) Spelling Differences-  Actually quite a lot of words are spelled differently, but I can't really be arsed to right them all out, but here's a few

Color - Colour

Favorite - Favourite

Flavor - Flavour (basically we put in some u's)

Realize - Realise

Recognize - Recognise (again we don't really use Z's (by the way we pronounce that zed) unless we are impersonating bees or sleeping, eg zzzzzzz)

And there are loads of others, but I think google will fill you in on those if you're really interested, but its normally easy to tell the differences, I'll try and add an external link to a a good wiki page which explains the differences, if I can work out how to do that.

 Author's Note

First of all, I LUUUURV CHU DADEY POOH (she made me write that)

So here you go! I hope you find some of these useful and some of us Brits would luuurv it if you could try and use some British terminology if your characters are from the UK. Oh ,and in case you didn't know the difference between England, UK and Britain...

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the full name, so technically the UK and Britain are the same thing and are made up of the countries England, Scotland, the principality of Wales and Northern Ireland. So the UK is not a country, it is a sovereign state, England is the country! Also Ireland is split into two, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland which are two separate countries and Northern Ireland is often described as a region, province or a country of the UK and RoI is NOT part of Britain but does have influence over various sections of Northern Ireland. I know my Nan (who is from The Republic of Ireland) gets really annoyed if you get them confused or ask why RoI isn't part of Britain, so I obviously do it to just to irritate her!

If anyone has any other differences or questions, please comment or send me a message. I'm sorry if I made any mistakes or anything and please don't feel like I'm getting at you, I LUUUUURV reading ALL your stories!

Oh and fore-mentioned friends that helped me with this are...

JadetheSpadexx

 SunGlasses

Dobbysocks2605

Hope you found this informative and helpful, keep reading and writing!

<3