American vs British IPA: 50 Words Compared

Look up tomato in an American dictionary and then in a British one, and the middle vowel is different. Look up car, and one transcription has an r that the other leaves out. Neither dictionary made a mistake. They transcribe two different standard accents: General American (GA) and the southern British standard usually called Received Pronunciation (RP).

Most of the differences are not word by word. A handful of patterns covers the bulk of them, and once you know the patterns you can predict how the other accent says a word you have only seen transcribed one way. Below are 50 words, grouped by the pattern that changes, with the US and UK transcriptions side by side.

Convert your own text: paste it into the English to IPA converter and switch between English (US) and English (UK) in the language menu.

How to read the two columns

Every transcription in this post comes from a pronunciation lexicon IPAtics maintains, and each word was checked by hand. As in most dictionaries, the stress mark comes before the stressed syllable, so car is written /ˈkɑɹ/. The UK entries mark stress on only some words, so a UK cell without a mark does not mean the word has no stress.

Some differences between the columns are notation, not pronunciation, so look past them to the sounds. If the symbols themselves are new to you, start with how to read IPA and come back.

The r-coloured /ɚ/ is the easiest symbol to misread. It is a schwa with the r built in, the vowel at the end of American water. The guide to the English schwa covers its plain British counterpart /ə/, which fills the same slot without the r.

The r after a vowel

The biggest difference is the r. General American is rhotic: every r in the spelling is pronounced. RP is non-rhotic: an r is pronounced only when a vowel follows it. At the end of a word or before a consonant it disappears, and the vowel before it changes to make up for it. Either the vowel gets longer, as in car, or it becomes a diphthong that glides towards schwa, as in near and care.

The r comes back in British speech when the next word starts with a vowel. Far on its own has no r, but far away does. This linking r is why RP speakers do not sound as if they drop letters at random: the r is still there, waiting for a vowel.

Rhoticity is not a clean US/UK line. Scotland, Ireland and the West Country of England are rhotic, and some traditional accents of Boston and New York City are not.

r between vowels: hurry and marry

When a vowel follows the r, both accents pronounce it. What changes is the vowel before it. General American merges several vowels in this position that RP keeps apart. In the US, hurry has the same stressed vowel as furry, the r-coloured /ɝ/. RP says it with /ʌ/, the vowel of cup, followed by a separate r. In the same way, many Americans say marry exactly like merry, while RP keeps an /æ/ in marry.

Three vowel patterns: BATH, LOT and GOAT

Phoneticians name English vowels after a keyword, following John Wells's Accents of English: the BATH vowel is whatever vowel a speaker uses in bath, class and laugh. The three sets below account for most of the vowel differences you will meet.

BATH: /æ/ or /ɑː/

In southern England, the short a of cat became a long /ɑː/ in many words where it comes before /f/, /θ/ or /s/, or before /n/ or /m/ plus another consonant. This is the trap–bath split. American English never made the change, and neither did the north of England, so a speaker from Manchester says class with the same vowel as a speaker from Chicago.

The split is patchy. It depends on the word, not only on the letters after the a. Gas, mass and classic keep the short /æ/ in RP even though they look like class. If you are learning British English, learn the BATH words as a list rather than as a rule.

LOT and THOUGHT: /ɑ/, /ɒ/ and /ɔ/

British English has a short rounded vowel /ɒ/ in hot: the jaw is open and the lips round slightly. General American has no /ɒ/. It uses an unrounded /ɑ/, the same vowel as in father, so an American bother rhymes with father and a British one does not.

The last two rows show a second American change. Many American speakers, and nearly all Canadians, no longer tell cot and caught apart, and the US dictionary here writes them the same way. RP keeps them apart with a long /ɔː/ in caught. A smaller group of words that have /ɒ/ in Britain, such as dog, get /ɔ/ rather than /ɑ/ in the US.

GOAT: /oʊ/ or /əʊ/

The vowel of no is a diphthong in both accents, and both end it near /ʊ/. The difference is where it starts. American English starts with rounded lips and the tongue back, at /o/. British English starts from the relaxed centre of the mouth, at /ə/, which is why the British vowel sounds flatter to American ears. The phoneme guide plays both in the same words: American /oʊ/ and British /əʊ/.

The yod: /u/ or /juː/

After /t/, /d/ and /n/, RP keeps a /j/ (the y of yes) before /uː/ that General American drops. British new sounds like "nyoo", American new like "noo". The American change is called yod-dropping, after the Hebrew letter name for the y sound.

In everyday British speech /tj/ and /dj/ often fuse into the first sounds of church and judge, so tune can sound like "choon" and duty like "jooty". The dictionary writes the older form with a separate /j/. After /s/, as in assume, many British speakers leave the /j/ out altogether.

Word endings: -ile, -ary and -ory

Two endings behave predictably, in opposite directions.

Words ending in -ile that come from Latin adjectives keep a full /aɪ/ in British English and reduce it in American English, so an American missile sounds like missal. The -ary, -ory and -ery endings go the other way. American English gives them a full vowel with secondary stress, which the dictionary marks with ˌ, while British English reduces them to schwa and in quick speech often drops that syllable.

Laboratory adds a stress shift on top. American English stresses the first syllable and British English the second, which is why the UK entry begins with a weak schwa and has a full /ɒ/ in the middle.

Words that are simply different

Some words follow none of the patterns above. Their pronunciation drifted in different directions on each side of the Atlantic, and the only way to learn them is one at a time.

Different vowels

Different consonants or stress

What neither column shows

A dictionary transcription is phonemic. It writes the sounds a speaker intends, not every detail of how they come out, which is the difference explained in phonemic vs phonetic transcription. Some of the most audible US/UK differences never appear in it.

The American flap. Between vowels, most Americans turn /t/ and /d/ into a quick tap of the tongue, written [ɾ] in phonetic transcription. Water and better get a sound close to the single r of Spanish pero, and latter and ladder can sound identical. The dictionary still writes /t/, because the flap is predictable from where the /t/ sits.

The British glottal stop. Many British speakers replace /t/ at the end of a word, and often between vowels too, with a glottal stop [ʔ], the catch in the throat in uh-oh. It is very common in everyday speech and absent from the dictionary.

The intrusive r. Because RP speakers are used to an r appearing before a vowel, as in far away, many also add one where the spelling has none: law and order with an r after law. The dictionary does not write that either.

Which accent should you learn?

Pick the one you hear most, and stay consistent within it. Neither is more correct, and both are understood wherever English is spoken. A mix is what sounds unplaced: an American r in car with a British vowel in class belongs to neither accent.

The patterns above tell you what to watch for. To check a word or a whole sentence in the accent you chose, paste it into the English to IPA converter and pick English (US) or English (UK). Running the same text through both is a quick way to see which of these patterns it contains.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do some dictionaries write /r/ and others /ɹ/?

On the IPA chart, /r/ is a trilled r, as in Spanish perro. The English r is an approximant, /ɹ/: the tongue approaches the roof of the mouth without touching it. Many dictionaries still write /r/ for English because the language has only one r sound, so nothing can be confused. The dictionary behind this post uses /ɹ/ in both columns.

Do Canadians and Australians follow the US or the UK column?

Neither exactly. Canadian English is rhotic like American English and has the cot–caught merger, but calls the last letter "zed" as the British do. Australian English is non-rhotic like RP and has its own version of the BATH split, while its vowels differ from both columns in ways these tables do not show.

Does everyone in Britain speak RP?

No. RP is a reference accent that dictionaries and teaching materials use, and most British people speak a regional accent instead. General American is likewise a broad standard rather than the speech of one place. Both columns are models to aim at, not descriptions of every speaker.

Trying It Yourself

The fastest way to learn these patterns is to meet them in text you are actually reading. IPAtics shows the IPA for any text you select, in any app, and you can set its English to US or UK.